Emmanuel Macron wanted to reaffirm his deep, heartfelt solidarity with Israel in the first hours of his trip to the Jewish state and the Palestinian territories on Tuesday, October 24th. But the French president anticipated the expectations of his Israeli interlocutors and aroused incomprehension among them by suggesting that the international coalition against the Islamic State organization (IS), to which France has been a member since 2014, should be equated with pure destruction. and ordinary Palestinian Hamas, promised by Israel.
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The initiative came after a nearly hour-and-a-half-long interview with Benjamin Netanyahu at the Israeli prime minister’s office in Jerusalem. “France is ready for the international coalition against Daesh [acronyme arabe de l’EI]“As we commit ourselves to our operations in Iraq and Syria, we can also fight against Hamas,” the head of state suggested in a short statement together with his interlocutor.
Emmanuel Macron defined “our common enemy” with one word: “terrorism.” For him, France shares Israel’s grief as it deplores the death of thirty nationals on October 7, which is considered the most significant attack on the French population since the Nice attack on July 14, 2016. “I propose to our international partners that we can form a regional and international coalition to fight against the terrorist groups that threaten us all,” continued the French president, who encouraged Middle Eastern states to join.
This proposal was developed at the Elysée Palace in particular by the political-military advisor Xavier Chatel. She surprised the Quai d’Orsay. It appears to take into account domestic counter-terrorism issues at a time when Paris recognizes that the conflict on its soil is having a strong impact. The Elysée seeks to ban any solidarity with Hamas by calling on its partners to recognize the fact that the Islamist movement must never again be considered a legitimate political actor in Europe or the Middle East.
However, this association with the absolute evil that ISIS embodied seems inaudible in Palestine and highly inflammatory in the Arab world, at a time when Israel’s top officials associate Hamas fighters with the population of Gaza without nuance. It ignores the fact that this party is part of the fabric of Palestinian society and that many Palestinians downplay or even ignore the horror of the October 7 attack. They consider it the most significant act of war in a century-long conflict against the Zionist movement and then against the State of Israel.
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