Macron and Netanyahu trade blows over creation of Israeli state

In private comments, the French President urged Benjamin Netanyahu to abide by UN decisions

Emmanuel Macron and Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem in 2023. AFP

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French President Emmanuel Macron told his cabinet on Tuesday that the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should not forget his country was created as a result of a resolution adopted by the United Nations and urged Israel to abide by UN decisions.

Mr Macron last week insisted that stopping the export of weapons used by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon was the only way to stop the conflicts, leading to increased tensions between the French leader and Mr Netanyahu. France has also repeatedly denounced Israeli fire against UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, who include a French contingent.

"Mr Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a decision of the UN," Mr Macron told the weekly French cabinet meeting, referring to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly on the plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state. "Therefore this is not the time to disregard the decisions of the UN," he added, as Israel wages a ground offensive against the Iran-backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where the UN peacekeepers are deployed.

His comments from the closed-door meeting at the Elysee Palace were quoted by a participant who spoke to AFP and asked not to be named. Mr Netanyahu hit back at Mr Macron, saying the country's founding was achieved by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, 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," Mr Netanyahu said in a statement.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701 states that only the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL should be deployed in southern Lebanon. Mr Netanyahu on Sunday called on the UN to move the 10,000 strong peacekeeping force, who include around 700 French troops, deployed in south Lebanon out of "harm's way", saying Hezbollah was using them as "human shields".