French President Emmanuel Macron has rebuked his own ministers for disclosing a comment he made about Israel during a private Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. The remark drew a sharp response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Earlier this week, AFP news agency, citing an anonymous meeting participant, reported President Macron as stating on Tuesday that “Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a UN decision.” He was referring to a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1947 on a plan to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. According to the media outlet, the French head of state added that “this is not the time to break away from UN decisions.”
Israel is currently at odds with the UN over international calls to end hostilities in Lebanon, where the IDF is engaged in a ground operation against Hezbollah militants.
Speaking at a press conference after an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday, President Macron emphasized that French ministers “must respect the rules and be ethical, and not share comments that are either truncated, false or taken out of context.” He stated he was “stupefied” to see the media reports of his private remarks.
“I speak enough about the situation in the Middle East and I don’t need ventriloquists,” the French president said.
In a statement quoted by the Times of Israel, Prime Minister Netanyahu reminded President Macron that “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.”
The two leaders have exchanged barbs since last week, with the French president last Friday accusing the Israeli military of “deliberately” targeting UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon. Macron has advocated halting the sale of Western weapons to Israel, arguing that this would help stop the bloodshed in Gaza and Lebanon.
Netanyahu retorted, denouncing Macron’s suggestion as shameful at a time when “Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran.”
Israel “would win with or without [Western] support,” the Israeli prime minister insisted at the time.