In the last weeks, The Jerusalem Post published three opinion papers slamming France for undermining Israel, adopting a double standard on Israel, and thus betraying moral values, and using Israel as a scapegoat to justify its foreign policy difficulties in the Middle East. I cannot remain silent anymore; enough is enough.
France is a popular target in Israel these days. We are not the only ones, but it bites harder. It has often been so when we had diverging opinions, especially on Lebanon. But what saddens me is the feeling of deepening and somehow staged hostility towards France, whereas both our countries eventually struggle against common challenges and threats.
I have loved Israel for a long time, and it was my dream to serve as ambassador here. I arrived in August 2023 full of enthusiasm, but a few weeks later, on October 7, the dream was slashed, and since then, I have lived this war among you, shared your anxiety and pain. I know what happened in your hearts and in the Jewish soul.
I was horrified at the savagery of the pogrom, the biggest antisemitic massacre since the end of WWII. I shared your indignation. I felt the rising rage. I understood this would lead to a war on all fronts.
France was shocked too. We instantly remembered Bataclan and Nice. We knew Islamist terror and the necessity to fight it. We had classified Hamas and Hezbollah’s armed wing as a terror organization alongside the EU.
France supported Israel's right to self-defense
We fought ISIS in Syria and Iraq. We supported the right of Israel to defend itself, and we contributed to your defense with our military assets in the region, including during the 12-day war last June. We commemorated the hostages and the victims of October 7 – more than 50 of whom were French, in the sole national remembrance ceremony organised for them abroad.
We are not smooth. We continuously demonstrated commitment against terrorism. We are hardliners on Iran’s nuclear program, and even the US found us too hawkish sometimes.
And yet we are painted here as treacherous, unreliable, and irrelevant, especially since France recognized the State of Palestine last September, and even more since the beginning of the war with Iran, to which we made clear from day one we would not participate.
Of course, it is your right to criticize us. But what isn’t normal is that I hear the same talking points all the time. I hear them from leaders and within weeks, everybody repeats them without a blink of nuance.
One thing I always cherished in Israel – and indeed in Jewish culture – was the constant taste for debate and controversy, the unlimited richness of arguments. I feel like it’s gone. Differing is now being unfriendly. Full-stop.
This absence of debate in Israel makes the country vulnerable. First, it increases your predictability for your opponents. This time, Iran and Hezbollah were prepared because they learned from your previous, more successful operations.
Second, it leads to poorer decisions, like diving into massive destruction campaigns, turning Gaza into Dresden (a comparison I have heard from your officials), South Lebanon into a desert, and devastating entire sectors of Beirut or Tehran, for what?
Thirdly, by rejecting all foreign partners’ opinions, it alienates them, and it damages good decision-making. We are not always right, but statistically, we cannot always be wrong.
I am no angel. I consider the use of force to be sometimes necessary. I know strength is key to sound diplomacy and policies. But I have experienced war in Afghanistan before, and I know it is not pretty. I learned the hard way that force alone solves nothing unless it is used with a clear, viable, and accessible political outcome in mind.
Israel is at war, and war creates anger against moderate voices, especially those speaking from abroad. While understandable, it is rarely wise, as it leads to further isolation. And I am worried to see Israel more and more isolated from the Europeans, and even now from a growing part of the American public opinion.
At the end, we are family, and this family feud is bad for all of us. So yes, we are French, we have our flaws, a big mouth, and the irritating habit of speaking our mind, including (and especially) to our friends and allies.
But we are not against Israel. We constantly stood for the right of this country to exist and live in peace. We are honest in acknowledging the rise of antisemitism at home and committed to fighting it in words and action.
What we are against are endless wars. We are also against being dragged into wars launched by others without consulting us, while they pretend to serve our security interests. What we support is the aspiration of people to dignity, security, and freedom: that goes for the Israeli people, but also for the Lebanese and Palestinian people.
Israel will not get out of the deadlock in which it is currently bogged down by accusing France and other Western powers of moral betrayal. Rather, Israel should have the courage and the honesty to acknowledge that it is the recent decisions it adopted without prior consulting or coordinating with us that create those difficulties.
Of course, Israel is an adult nation; it does not need prior vetting of all its decisions. But we are adults too, and when we are not consulted, and we disagree, it is only legitimate that we voice it. Instead of discarding our concerns and resorting to the groundless moral argument, maybe you should genuinely listen and try to hear and understand what we say.
Partners are here to support, but also sometimes to express disagreement. That’s how France thinks and acts, and with due respect, that does not make us irrelevant. Look at what is happening in Lebanon.
We pressed for a ceasefire and direct talks between Israel and Lebanon. We got a rebuff, only to do that very thing a week later, after Iran pushed the US to order it, with a situation on the ground that seems like déjà vu. So sorry to speak my mind, but in this matter, it’s Israel who made a mistake; it’s Emmanuel Macron who was right.
The writer is the French ambassador to Israel.