Note To President Macron: Sois Beau Et Tais-Toi

The French phrase “Sois Belle Et Tais-Toi” is meant to be addressed to an empty-headed but good-looking woman, meaning “be beautiful and keep quiet.” Among the world leaders to whom that phrase ought to be addressed, President Macron leads all the rest.

Emmanuel Macron, safely re-elected on April 24, is reminding some of us why we didn’t supoprt him in the first place. There was his bizarre insistence in mid-April that “Russians and Ukrainians are brothers,” at the very moment when the Russian army was engaged in the mass slaughter of their Ukrainian “brothers.” This remark did not sit well, naturally, with Ukrainian leaders, who described Macron as “tone deaf,” a “disgrace,” and “arrogant.” In early June, he again infuriated Ukrainians, and many others in Europe, by insisting that “Russia should not be humiliated.” Ukraine’s top diplomat, Dmytro Kuleba, tartly responded on Twitter: “Calls to avoid humiliating Russia can only humiliate France or any other country [that claims the same]. Because it is Russia that is humiliating itself. We need to focus better on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save people’s lives.”

On the matter of Ukraine, Macron is one of only two European leaders — the other is Viktor Orban — who has refused to condemn Russia. He is no doubt congratulating himself for “keeping channels open to Putin,” and making no secret of his desire to play the role of mediator between Ukraine and Russia. He fails to realize that such jejune remarks as “Russians and Ukrainians are brothers” have earned him the contempt of all Ukrainians, so that he will never be accepted by Kyiv as a mediator.

Now Macron has made another moral and political error. He spoke at the beginning of June to the PA’s head, 87-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, now entering both the 17th year of his four-year term as President, and the third year of his dotage/anecdotage. Macron offered Abbas both support and sympathy for the Palestinian cause. A report on the French president’s latest geopolitical faux-pas is here: “France’s Macron Speaks with PA’s Abbas over West Bank Violence,” i24 News, June 5, 2022:

French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday and expressed his “concern” over the “deteriorating situation” in the West Bank.

Did Macron at any time discuss who was responsible for that “deteriorating” situation, or did he want to leave the impression that the Israelis were at fault? Surely the knows that the current “deterioration” was the result of two thing. First, there was a sudden wave of Palestinian terror attacks in Beersheva, Hadera, Bnei Brak, and Tel Aviv, in which 19 Israelis were murdered — attacks which Abbas praised. Second, hysteria among the Palestinians was whipped up by both Hamas and the P.A., with their excited — and false — claims that Israel was intent on seizing and “desecrating” the Al-Aqsa Mosque, either by destroying it, or by turning it into a synagogue.

Macron also spoke to Abbas of his “availability” to help negotiate a “lasting peace” in the region, according to a statement from Macron’s office. 

Whether it’s Ukraine and Russia, or Israel and the Palestinians, Macron stands ready to offer his peacemaking services.

Macron has a bee in his bonnet: he wants to be an International Mediator, a Getting-To-Yes kind of guy. He’s eager to settle the Ukraine-Russia war and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Hence his telling Abbas about his “availability.” And by showing his sympathy for the Palestinians, just as he did for the Russians, he hopes to make himself acceptable, in both cases, to the more intransigent side.

The French President “deplored the continuation of the (Israeli) settlement policy and reminded Abbas of France’s unwavering commitment to respect the legitimate rights of Palestinians.”

Macron can “deplore” Israel’s settlement policy from here to eternity, but the Israelis will quite rightly pay him no never mind. And what’s more, that kind of remark — “deploring Israel’s settlement policy” simply confirms the Israelis in their decision not to take him on as a mediator. Apparently Emmanuel Macron has not read, much less understood, the following: the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine (1920), the Treaty of San Remo (1922), Article 80 of the U.N. Charter (1946), and UN Security Council Resolution 242 (Nov. 22, 1967). So let’s remind him, at the very least, of what the Mandate for Palestine says.

ART. 6.

The Administration of Palestine, while ensuring that the rights and position of other sections of the population are not prejudiced, shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes.

“Close settlement by Jews on the land.” Commit Article 6 to memory, President Macron. And what “land” is being referred tot? It’s the land that was assigned by the League of Nations to be covered by the Mandate’s provisions. It extended from the Golan in the north to the Red Sea in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean in the west. In other words, it included all of the area “from the river to the sea.”

When Israelis move onto land in Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank), they are doing as the Mandate for Palestine insisted they be allowed to do. When the League of Nations ended its operations in 1946, the Mandate for Palestine did not expire. Article 80 of the U.N. Charter recognized that organization’s duty to ensure the fulfilling of the League of Nations’ provisions for the Mandate for Palestine’s by the mandatory authority, Great Britain.

In fact, Macron might usefully be reminded that originally the Palestine Mandate included the large swathe of land east of the Jordan – 78% of the territory intended to be covered by the Mandate — that was reassigned to become the Kingdom of Jordan. The British in 1921 closed off all of the territory east of the Jordan to Jewish immigration, and instead created in that territory the Emirate of Transjordan, which subsequently became the Kingdom of Trans-Jordan and, finally, as it is known today, the Arab Kingdom of Jordan. The reason for that particular real estate transaction was Great Britain’s desire to provide the Hashemite Prince Abdullah with a country of his own. Abdullah had been angered by being passed over when his younger brother Feisal was placed on the throne of Iraq by the British, and he threatened to move on French-held Damascus, to provide himself with the Syrian throne. Such a move would have embroiled the British in a diplomatic contretemps with the French, who held the Mandate for Syria/Lebanon. To satisfy Abdullah, the British instead presented him with the Emirate of Transjordan. The Zionists protested, but to no avail. 

Israel’s army intensified its arrest operations in the West Bank following a series of terrorist attacks on Israeli towns that left 19 people dead.

It is the most recent wave of Palestinian terrorism that explains the “deteriorating situation” in Judea and Samaria. Israel naturally has been hunting down the terrorists. What else was the IDF expected to do – let them go?

The raids sparked clashes with armed Palestinian groups, in which 30 Palestinians, including an Al Jazeera journalist, were killed.

Macron sent his condolences for the death of Shireen Abu Akleh during his conversation with Abbas and recalled the “importance for France that all the light is made on the circumstances of his [sic] death.”

Macron wants “all the light [sic] is made on the circumstances of his [sic] death.” In other words, he claims to want a full investigation, with nothing held back. And that’s exactly what Israel wants, a full investigation, where all the evidence is made available for study. The Israelis are not the ones withholding evidence; it’s the Palestinians, who won’t let the bullet be seen either by the Israelis, or by the Americans, or by anyone else. They expect the world to simply accept their claim that “an Israeli sniper killed Shireen Abu Akhleh.

He expressed his “readiness” to contain any escalation and promote the resumption of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians “with a view to achieving a just and lasting peace in the region.”

A “just and lasting peace” will not be obtained by negotiations leading to a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians. In the view of Muslims; peace treaties with Infidels can be breached, following the example of Muhammad, who breached the Treaty of Al-Hudaibiyyah that he had made with the Meccans in 628 A.D., and that was supposed to last for ten years. He broke the treaty 18 months later, when he judged his forces had strengthened sufficiently to go on the attack. What will keep the peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not a peace treaty, but deterrence. As long as Israel remains overwhelmingly stronger than the Palestinians and other potential enemies, a large-scale conflict can be avoided. That’s the only kind of peace that can realistically be obtained. Deterrence worked during the Cold War; it can work in the Middle East.

He underlined his particular attention for the Holy Sites in Jerusalem, which he visited in January 2020, and the stability and security of all stakeholders in the region,” the statement from Elysee Palace said.

Macron apparently does not know what has been going on at the Temple Mount. It is the Palestinians who have stockpiled weapons – rocks and bottles (for making Molotov cocktails) – inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque, thereby “desecrating” the site. It is the Palestinians who have been using Al-Aqsa as a fortress, from which they hurl those rocks at Jewish visitors on the Mount, further “desecrating” the site. It is the Palestinians who have been throwing rocks and bottles from the Temple Mount onto Jews worshipping at the Western Wall far below. It is the Israelis who have made every effort not to offend Muslim sensibilities, severely limiting visits by Jews to the Mount, to four hours a day, and only from Sunday to Thursday. It is the Israelis who for 55 years, ever since they came into possession of the Old City, have prohibited Jews from saying prayers aloud, or silently mouthing them, at the holiest site in Judaism. The Arabs, far from being assuaged, are now claiming — as Mahmoud Abbas did the other day — that the Haram al -Sharif (Temple Mount) is exclusively an Islamic site. The French president must have missed that preposterous claim. 

Macron missed his chance to help, not hinder, the investigation into the death of Shireen Abu Akhleh. He might, for example, have offered to have French forensic experts study the bullet that killed the Al Jazeera journalist. “in order to bring the investigation to a full and successful conclusion.” Would Abbas turn down his French friend, or feel compelled to take up his offer? He might have also commented on the terrorist wave, and expressed the “need for all parties to denounce terrorist acts” and “to do nothing which rewards or encourages them” which, he could tell President Abbas, “I know you deplore those acts as much as anyone.” Nonsense, of course; Abbas doesn’t condemn terrorism, but praises it, and his Pay-For-Slay program rewards past, and incentivizes future, terrorism. But for his Western audience, including Macron, he must keep pretending that he deplores terrorism as much as they do. Macron would have done well to have passed over in silence the matter of Israeli “settlements” — that is, those solid built-to-last Jewish, towns, and cities in Judea and Samaria – rather than attempt to please Abbas by ignoring Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine.

Macron wants to make sure the Palestinians will accept him as a Mediator between Israel and themselves. And after this ingratiating performance, they very likely will. But Israel is a different matter. From now on, when it comes to the handsome but much-too-ignorant inhabitant of the Elysee Palace, the Israelis will dismiss him thus: “Sois beau et tais-toi.”