PHOTO: ADAPTATION BY GUS LEONISKY

The Franco-Israeli relationship was once a subject of obsessive scrutiny by the CIA as US intelligence scrambled to uncover proof that Tel Aviv was deceiving Washington as it built a nuclear bomb in secrecy – with more than a little help from the French.

CIA documents from the early 1960s that have since been declassified record speculation about the political backing in Paris for the suspicious nuclear cooperation between the French and Israeli militaries.     

In a 1961 report, the CIA noted that the French ambassador to Israel “confirmed” that his military attaché in Israel “was much more intimately connected to the Israeli Army than is usual for an attaché”. The document concluded that, “It is unlikely that such cooperation would be possible without political support.”

France, at that time, was trying to recover diplomatically from the disastrous 1956 Suez crisis, which saw the British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt until heavy pressure from Washington and Moscow prompted an embarrassing withdrawal.

With the Algerian independence war raging, the French government, under Charles de Gaulle, did not want to bear the onus of Arab hostility for arming Israel – publicly. But the high-level “cooling off” in French-Israeli relations “does not seem to have affected the close military ties cemented by cooperation in the Suez incident”, the CIA concluded.

That was more than 60 years and many Mideast wars ago. US suspicions about French-Israeli relations have now given way to outrage as President Emmanuel Macron pushes several Western countries to jointly recognise the state of Palestine. France is also co-hosting, along with Saudi Arabia, a June 17-20 UN summit to accelerate a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis.

The French diplomatic drive appears to have incensed the top US diplomat in Israel. In an interview with Fox News over the weekend, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee lashed out at Macron’s advocacy for a Palestinian state. "If France is really so determined to see a Palestinian state, I've got a suggestion for them – carve out a piece of the French Riviera and create a Palestinian state,” he said.

Meanwhile Israel, facing increasing international isolation over the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, has kept up a high-octane tirade against France over the past few weeks.

On Friday, shortly after Macron asserted that a recognition of a Palestinian state was "not only a moral duty, but a political necessity", Israel issued a blistering response. "President Macron’s Crusade Against the Jewish State Continues," said an Israeli foreign ministry statement posted on X. Countering yet another UN warning of a looming, Israeli-imposed enforced famine in Gaza, Israel maintained that the “facts do not interest Macron. There is no humanitarian blockade. That is a blatant lie."

French-Israeli relations have come a long way since the inception period of close political and military ties following the 1948 creation of Israel. Over the past seven decades, bilateral relations have careened from cooperation over shared strategic interests in the Arab world to periods of arms embargoes and warnings, followed by phases of rapprochement until they hit rocky ground again.

Along the way, French noises about recognising a Palestinian state have been invariably met with Israeli allegations of anti-Semitism and barbed reminders of the Vichy-era collaboration with the Nazis.

The latest anti-French screed by Israel and its supporters have been met, for the most part, with a Gallic shrug in French Mideast circles.

“The reactions are not really surprising. They are pretty much in line with the hawkish rhetoric that has been emanating from the Israeli government. But they have taken it up a notch because they are sort of panicking, because they realise that Western public opinion is shifting very rapidly,” said Karim Emile Bitar, a lecturer in Middle East studies at SciencesPo, Paris.

“This is not something new. French relations with Israel have always been difficult. Almost every French president since Charles de Gaulle has been called anti-Semitic by the Israeli government. Almost everyone, except perhaps Sarkozy,” added Bitar, referring to former French president Nicolas Sarkozy. “But today, the Israelis are becoming almost insulting. Sometimes, it appears that there is a willingness to humiliate France.”

The slights have included diplomatic dust-ups, such as a brief detention of French embassy staff in November during a visit by French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to a holy site in Jerusalem historically administered by France. When Israeli security forces entered the compound of the Church of the Pater Noster on the Mount of Olives and detained two French consulate gendarmes, Barrot had to cancel his church visit and France issued a summons to the Israeli ambassador in Paris.

It was not the first such incident at French-administered religious sites in a part of Jerusalem annexed by Israel in the 1967 war. In January 2020, Macron was forced to put his foot down during a visit to the Church of Sainte-Anne in the walled Old City, when Israeli security forces pushed their way into the site. “Everybody knows the rules,” Macron berated the security officials. “I don’t like what you did, in front of me. Go outside.”

In France, presidential explosions – in heavily French-accented English – in Jerusalem churches are viewed as emblematic of the long-standing yet testy ties between the two countries. They even inspire memes and musicians. In 1996, for instance, an exasperated Jacques Chirac told Israeli soldiers at Sainte-Anne: “What do you want? You want me to go back to my plane and come back to France?” Chirac’s lines are often repeated in France, including in song lyrics.

But French patience with heavy-handed Israeli security personnel is wearing thin, particularly when it comes to defenceless Palestinians. As Gazans face starvation, death and dislocation, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz’s pledge that “no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza” or National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s assertion that Gazans deserve “not even an ounce of food or aid” have been met with horror in France.

Israel’s refusal to address core issues of the Palestinian conflict and its verbal lashings of its allies for bringing it up are also exasperating diplomats in Paris.

Michel Duclos, a former French ambassador to Syria and a special adviser to the Paris-based Institut Montaigne, believes there are two elements behind the recent Israeli backlash. “First, it has been years and years now since the Israelis have taken a very hard stance against France. Second, they are very upset about the issue of the recognition of the state of Palestine. They consider, rightly so, that Macron is leading the move from the very last G7 countries that have not recognised the state of Palestine.”

While much of the Arab world, Africa, Asia and several eastern European countries recognised the state of Palestine in the 1980s, Western nations have held back, maintaining that Palestinians can only gain statehood as part of a negotiated peace with Israel.

But Israel’s latest military onslaught in Gaza, which has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, has boosted European support for Palestinian statehood. Out of 193 UN member states, 147 recognise the state of Palestine, including Spain, Ireland, Norway and Slovenia, the latest European additions to join the ranks. The G7 countries – comprising Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – have held out, with the US using its veto at the UN Security Council last year to prevent a Palestinian bid to become a full UN member state.

In the lead-up to the June 17-20 UN summit, French foreign ministry statements have carefully noted that the “legitimate aspiration” for a Palestinian state must be accompanied by a comprehensive strategy that includes disarming Hamas, the release of hostages held by the militant group after the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack, a reform of the Palestinian Authority and a “day after” reconstruction plan for Gaza.

The Israeli response has focused on characterising the French initiative as a “reward to Hamas”, Duclos notes. “Maybe they believe that. I don't know, I can’t say. But if that’s the case, I think it's a mistake because you can argue that it's exactly the opposite. The way to deprive Hamas of legitimacy is to say that there should be a Palestinian state, of course – not in the hands of Hamas or in the hands of the extremists, but in the hands of a reformed Palestinian Authority.”

Since the October 7 Hamas attack, Macron has shifted his position with the deteriorating humanitarian situation on the ground in Gaza. It’s a move dictated by ethical, international as well as domestic concerns in France, home to Europe’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a lightning rod issue.

“Macron has been trying to use his traditional en même temps approach to foreign policy,” said Bitar, referring to the French term for “at the same time” – a phrase deployed for Macron’s frequent, seemingly contradictory positions. “Initially, he was very supportive of Israel after the October 7th massacres. But progressively, he started to change his rhetoric, and he became increasingly critical of Israel.”

While critics lampoon the centrist president’s en même temps proclivity, Macron’s shifts on the Mideast have been consistent with changing French positions on a longstanding crisis.

De Gaulle, France’s first post-war president, did the first presidential flip when he finally put the brakes on military ties with Israel and imposed an arms embargo after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. He then launched what is called the politique arabe de la France, France's Arab policy, which brought Paris closer to the demands of the Palestinians and of other Arab countries.

The position continued under the presidency of Socialist leader François Mitterrand, sparking the concept of “Gaullo-Mitterrandism” in French foreign policy circles.

Gaullo-Mitterrandism placed France within the Western alliance as a sort of dissenting member – never fully aligned, unlike Britain – with US foreign policy. Mitterrand’s successor, Jacques Chirac, put Gaullo-Mitterrandism on centre stage in 2003, when France opposed the US invasion of Iraq, which was vociferously supported by Israel.

When Chirac’s successor Nicolas Sarkozy came to power in 2007, “things started to change”, explained Bitar. “In France, he was the first openly pro-Israel French president. And after Sarkozy, under François Hollande, France started to be perceived as just another Western country: it was no longer sending a discordant, dissident voice within the collective West,” he noted. “France ... lost its soft power in the Arab world because of this.”

After nearly two decades of French alliance with the US on Mideast policy, “Macron is trying to bring some balance, maintain solid relations with Israel, but criticising it whenever necessary. And in the past few months, he has been raising his tone,” Bitar said.

As US President Donald Trump’s hostility toward Europe and its institutions draws other Western capitals closer together, Macron has been spearheading talks with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Canada’s Mark Carney, Australia’s Anthony Albanese and other leaders ahead of the upcoming UN two-state solution summit.

Experts agree that a Western recognition of a Palestinian state, if it were to happen, is unlikely to change the situation on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank while Israel continues to enjoy Washington’s protection. They can’t seem to agree, however, on what to make of a slate of recent Trump administration moves in the region that are firmly opposed by Israel. These include reopening nuclear talks with Iran, lifting sanctions on Syria and meeting interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa, as well as announcing a truce with Yemen’s Houthis and directly dealing with Hamas for the release of a US hostage in Gaza.

While the latest Trump twists in the region are being closely followed in foreign policy circles, Duclos believes they are unlikely to impact geostrategic calculations in European capitals. “You can't base your policy on what Trump thinks today when you don't know what he's going to think tomorrow,” he said.

These geostrategic shifts may account for the tone of Israel’s vitriolic broadsides against Paris in recent months. “France is perceived as a European heavyweight because it's a former colonial power in the Middle East,” said Bitar. “France's diplomacy can have an important symbolic weight.”

https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20250603-france-bears-the-brunt-of-israel-s-isolation-ire

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