PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron further strained tense relations with Israel with a comment on Tuesday referring to the creation of the Israeli state, a verbal jab that was condemned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “distorting history”.

Macron has sought to take a tough stance on the conflicts in the Middle East after Israel launched an offensive against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, a former French protectorate.

The French leader said last week that stopping the export of weapons used by Israel in Lebanon and Gaza Strip was the only way to stop the two conflicts.

France, which is home to Europe’s largest Jewish population, has repeatedly urged a ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon, but has also increasingly criticised Israel over the heavy civilian toll in the conflicts.

Paris has also denounced Israeli fire against the 10,000 peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) in southern Lebanon, which includes a French contingent of around 700 troops.

UN decision created Israel

“Mr Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN,” Macron told a weekly French cabinet meeting on Tuesday, referring to the resolution adopted in Nov 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

His comments during the closed-door meeting at the Elysee Palace were quoted by two participants who asked not to be named.

“Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN,” he added. Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and Unifil should be deployed in southern Lebanon.

Netanyahu hit back at Macron’s comments, saying the country’s founding was achieved by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, not a UN ruling.

He also said that among those who fought for Israel in 1948 were French Jews who had been sent to death camps after being rounded up by the collaborationist Vichy regime, which governed France during the Nazi occupation in World War II.

“A reminder to the president of France: it was not the UN resolution that established the state of Israel, but rather the victory achieved in the `war of independence’ with the blood of heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors — including from the Vichy regime in France,” Netanyahu said.

The French presidency’s readout of a phone call between both men — sent deep in the night, several hours after the conversation took place — made clear the testy nature of the exchange.

Macron told Netanyahu that he condemned “the indiscriminate Israeli strikes that only add to an already intolerable human toll, in Gaza as in Lebanon”, it said.

Published in Dawn, October 17th, 2024