French President Emmanuel Macron speaks during a press conference in Paris, France, June 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Stephane Mahe
French President Emmanuel Macron has rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s argument connecting a rise in hate against France’s Jewish community with the recent decision by Paris to recognize a Palestinian state.
“The analysis that France’s decision to recognize the state of Palestine in September explains the rise in antisemitic violence in France is erroneous, abject, and will not go unanswered,” Macron’s office said in a statement on Tuesday, insisting that “the current period calls for seriousness and responsibility, not generalization and manipulation.”
The French leader’s office added that “violence against the Jewish community is unacceptable” and called for all local and regional governments in the country to “take the strongest possible action against the perpetrators of antisemitic acts.”
Netanyahu on Sunday sent a letter to Macron in which he wrote that “your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on this antisemitic fire.” He warned that “it is not diplomacy, it is appeasement. It rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas’s refusal to free the hostages, emboldens those who menace French Jews, and encourages the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets.”
The letter came a few weeks after Macron in late July announced that France will recognize a Palestinian state and issue a formal statement at the United Nations General Assembly in September as part of its “commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.”
Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia all announced their own plans to recognize a Palestinian state in the following days.
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has celebrated the Western countries for their decisions. Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, for example, praised the plans to recognize a Palestinian state as “the fruits of Oct. 7,” citing the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, as the reason for increasing Western support.
“As [US President Donald] Trump has shown, antisemitism can and must be confronted. The president is protecting the civil rights of American Jews, enforcing the law, protecting public order and prosecuting antisemitic crimes,” Netanyahu wrote in his letter. “He has deported Hamas sympathizers and revoked the visas of foreign students who incite violence against Jews.”
France has seen an alarming rise in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 invasion of the Jewish state, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
The total number of antisemitic outrages in 2024 — 1,570 — was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022, according to a report by the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF), the main representative body of French Jews.
“Antisemitism is a cancer,” Netanyahu warned Macron in his letter. “It spreads when leaders stay silent. It retreats when leaders act. I call upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve, and to do so by a clear date: the Jewish New Year, Sept. 23, 2025. History will not forgive hesitation. It will honor action.”
Benjamin Haddad, who serves as France’s Minister Delegate for European Affairs, said in response to Netanyahu that “France has no lessons to learn in the fight against antisemitism.”
Last week, vandals targeted a tree planted to memorialize Ilan Halimi, a Jew who was kidnapped and tortured to death in France in 2006.
“Cutting down the tree honoring Ilan Halimi is an attempt to kill him a second time. It will not succeed: the Nation will not forget this child of France who died because he was Jewish,” Macron posted Friday on X. “All means are being deployed to punish this act of hatred. In the face of antisemitism: the Republic, always uncompromising.”
On Aug. 7, employees of Israeli airline El Al discovered red paint splashed all over the doors of their Paris office and graffiti of such slogans as “Palestine will live, Palestine will win,” “To hell with Zionism,” and “Genocidal airline El Al.”
This prompted the airline to pull all its staff from the country and issue a statement saying, “El Al takes the incident very seriously and is actively cooperating with the authorities, adhering to the guidance of officials in both France and Israel. The airline proudly displays the Israeli flag on its planes and strongly condemns all forms of violence, particularly antisemitism.”
On March 13, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy released an analysis of hate against Jews in France by historian Marc Knobel, an associate researcher at the Jonathas Institute in Brussels and author of Cyberhate: Propaganda and Antisemitism on the Internet. He found a link between conflict in the Middle East and antisemitism in France.
“A recurring correlation emerges between peaks in antisemitic acts in France and periods of tension in the Middle East, particularly visible in the years 2000, 2002, 2004, 2009, 2012, 2014, 2019, 2023, and 2024,” Knobel wrote. “What stands out in 2025 is the prevalence of antisemitism linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.”
Knobel urged that “it is essential that politicians are aware of the impact of their words on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; irresponsible and violent speeches by the radical left can exacerbate tensions and fuel antisemitism in our country.”
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Author: David Swindle
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