French Ambassador Frédéric Journès rejected the claims that his country’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state caused the collapse of the hostage-ceasefire talks, saying that the announcement came after Hamas had ended the negotiations.
Journès’ comments were made at The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference on Tuesday, where he participated in a discussion with German ambassador Steffen Siebert.
France is set to recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly next week.
“I know most people in Israel don’t like what we’ve been doing and think it was anti-Israel, but I don’t agree,” Journès said. “October 7 was a criminal terrorist attack; Hamas is guilty of it. The future is without Hamas, a demilitarized Palestine, and normalization. [Our decision] is resented as anti-Israel. It’s not.”
Siebert noted that while Germany has yet to recognize a Palestinian statehood and has different views on timing, it nevertheless “completely shares the goal of working toward a Palestinian state soon with credible steps taken toward this end.”
This, he said, was why Germany voted for the New York Declaration. The declaration is the result of a road map presented in July at the UN in which a plan for a two-state solution was laid out.
“What we say comes from the position of friends of Israel who want Israel to be secure and safe in its own internationally recognized borders,” Siebert said.
A violation of international law
When asked how Israel’s push for sovereignty in areas of the West Bank might affect bilateral relations, Siebert answered by saying that “the German belief is that it would be both unwise and illegal in the sense that it would be a violation of international law.”
He also said that should such an annexation go ahead, this would stand in the way of achieving peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
“Would that create an equality of citizens, which of course is what you always should strive for, or will it create citizens of a different position?” he asked.
Further, Siebert encouraged Israelis not to see suffering in Gaza as a form of Hamas propaganda.
“I’m sure there is Hamas propaganda, of course, but there are also international doctors who spend a month working in some hospital in Gaza, and then they come out and they tell us stories that we can only hear in utter disbelief. So it’s not all propaganda.”
Journès concurred: “Israel should care more about what the rest of the world thinks of what’s happening here,” he said. “Foreign opinion is important.”
“You must project outside your own feelings of what you’re suffering [through]... trying to understand what happens country by country,” Journès said, criticizing those who view all criticism as antisemitic.
“We do have antisemites – unfortunately, a growing number of [them] in Germany and probably all over Europe,” Siebert added. “But let us not dilute this essential fight against this poison of antisemitism by too easily calling everyone critical [of Israel] an antisemite.”