Netanyahu, Macron trade barbs about Israel’s founding amid spat over war in Lebanon
After French leader ‘reminds’ PM that Israel was created by UN decision and therefore global body should be respected, Netanyahu says Jewish state earned its existence via 1948 war
French President Emmanuel Macron (R) welcomes Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati (L) before a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris on April 19, 2024.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu exchanged snipes Tuesday with French President Emmanuel Macron amid a public rift over Lebanon, where Israel is battling the Hezbollah terror group.
The barbs began when Macron upped the pressure on Israel to abide by United Nations decisions, telling his cabinet that “Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN.”
The statement referred to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly on a plan to partition the Holy Land into separate Jewish and Arab states.
France has repeatedly denounced alleged Israeli targeting of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, which includes a French contingent.
“Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN,” Macron added, as Israel wages a ground offensive against the Iran-backed Shiite terror group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where the UN peacekeepers are deployed. Israel has repeatedly urged UNIFIL to evacuate its forces from combat areas, but the force has rebuffed the pleas.
Macron’s comments from the closed-door meeting at the Élysée Palace were quoted by a participant who spoke to AFP and asked not to be named.
Netanyahu hit back at Macron’s comments, saying the country’s founding was achieved by the 1948 War of Independence, not a UN ruling.
“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 in a statement.
The two men also spoke by phone, with Macron continuing to push for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon to get to a diplomatic settlement, which he called “the only one likely to meet Israel’s security requirements,” according to the Élysée Palace readout of the call.
In the Israeli readout, Netanyahu rejected calls for a ceasefire, and said he would only agree to an arrangement in which all Hezbollah forces are pushed out of a buffer zone on Israel’s border.
Netanyahu and the military have repeatedly insisted that there must be a buffer zone along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon that will have no presence of Lebanese Hezbollah fighters, in line with a 2006 UN Security Council resolution.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu clarified [to Macron] that Israel would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide this and which does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping,” the statement from his office said.
Tensions have increased between Netanyahu and Macron, with the French leader last week insisting that stopping the export of weapons used by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon was the only way to stop the conflicts. Netanyahu called the suggestion “a disgrace.”
On the phone, Macron called for a ceasefire in Gaza to get all the hostages out and allow humanitarian aid in, his office said. He also expressed concern over settler violence and settlement construction in the West Bank.
Israel has faced international criticism over injuries and damage sustained in recent days by the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which has been deployed in Lebanon since the first of Israel’s four major ground offensives against its neighbor in 1978, but which Israel notes has done little to uphold its mandate of keeping armed members of the Iran-backed Hezbollah away from southern Lebanon.
At least five UNIFIL soldiers have been lightly injured in a spate of recent incidents that have also included shootings that the UN did not attribute to either Israel or Hezbollah.
On the phone Tuesday, Macron “expressed his indignation after several peacekeepers were wounded by Israeli forces in Naqoura and urged Israel to put an end to this unjustifiable targeting.”
Netanyahu again called Monday for the peacekeepers in southern Lebanon to move from certain areas near the Israeli border, while dismissing as “completely false” claims that Israeli forces deliberately targeted UNIFIL.
Later, UNIFIL’s mission spokesperson posted a video message on X, saying: “We are staying. We are in the south of Lebanon under a security council mandate, so it’s important to keep an international presence and to keep the UN flag in the area.”
Israel launched the offensive against Hezbollah late last month after a year of intensifying rocket, drone, and missile fire at northern Israeli towns and military positions by the Iran-backed group, in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza.
Since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah-led forces have attacked Israeli communities and military posts along the border on a near-daily basis, with the group saying it is doing so to support its ally Hamas amid the war in Gaza following the Palestinian terror group’s October 7 massacre in southern Israel.
Some 60,000 residents of northern Israel were evacuated from towns near the Lebanon border shortly after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, amid fears Hezbollah would carry out a similar attack and increasing rocket fire by the terror group.
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