Macron Turns Turk, Abandons His ‘Unwavering Support’ For Israel’s War Against Hamas

Three weeks ago, French President Emmanuel Macron was standing foursquare with Israel. On October 7 he deplored the atrocities carried out by Hamas earlier that day, without any moral ambiguity. He understood that Israel had to fight back relentlessly against such an enemy. He even went to Israel to express his solidarity, and suggested that a military coalition might be formed to fight the Hamas terrorists, similar to the one formed to defeat ISIS. That was all most welcome. But now he’s been sounding a different note, demanding that Israel “stop the bombing” in Gaza. His pusillanimity is showing. Macron is now running scared — scared of the Muslims in France and what they might do if he were to continue to support Israel, however justified that support may be. More on his flip-flop can be found here: “French Jews worry Muslim unrest could see Macron flip on Israel, putting them at risk,” by Canaan Lidor, Times of Israel, November 14, 2023:

On a solidarity visit to Israel last month, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to stand by Israel for the duration of its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“I want to assure you that you will not be left alone in this war against terrorism,” Macron on October 24 told President Isaac Herzog at a meeting in Jerusalem following Hamas’s deadly October 7 attack on Israel. Macron even proposed that France participate in a coalition fighting against Hamas, as it did against ISIS.

Less than three weeks later, however, Macron became the first leader of a major Western power to demand that Israel “stop bombing” in Gaza. He added to this plea vivid language rarely used by French heads of state in describing the actions of a friendly country.

“Civilians are bombed,” Macron told the BBC on Saturday. “These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”

Macron’s language describing the IDF’s campaign in Gaza is shocking. Civilians are bombed in every war; it’s a fact of modern warfare. But in deciding if Israel is justified in its bombing, we look both at the intent of the IDF and at the nature of the targets it selects. Even a normally civilian structure, such as a school, or mosque, or apartment building, can become a legitimate target if it is being used by terrorists for military uses. Israel bombs Hamas targets, where weapons are hidden, rocket launchers placed, combatants concealed in their bunkers, and command centers concealed under hospitals. These have been deliberately placed near civilian structures, in order to use Gazans as human shields. The goal of Hamas is always to maximize civilian casualties; the goal of the IDF is always to minimize them.

The intent of the IDF is not to hit civilians, but to do the best it can to warn civilians away from buildings or sites, or whole swathes of territory soon to be targeted for attack. It uses messaging, telephoning, leafletting (1.5 million leaflets were dropped in northern Gaza, urging civilians to move to the southern part of the Strip for their own safety), and the “knock-on-the-roof” technique. IAF pilots routinely abort missions if they detect too many civilians in the target area. Israel has a perfect right to bomb these places, as long as it makes efforts to minimize civilian casualties. Macron deplores Israel’s bombing of “these babies, these ladies, these old people,” but he knows perfectly well that it does no such thing deliberately; it makes greater efforts to avoid civilian casualties than any other army, as British Colonel Richard Kemp;, who has observed the IDF from close up, has concluded. According to him, no other country’s military warns the enemy of impending attacks; he describes the IDF as “the most moral army in the world.”

The about-face surprised Israeli diplomats. It also shocked French Jews, some of whom experienced it as a betrayal that they fear will only fuel the surge of antisemitic incidents that is causing them to live in fear.

To some, it’s a sign that French diplomacy on Israel is “being held hostage,” as one Jewish critic put it, by pro-Palestinian Muslim rioters….

Of course it is. Macron has turned on Israel only because he is afraid of what Muslims in France will do if he continues to support the embattled Jewish state. He would rather dampen Muslim discontent than side with those who are in the right. In the long run, this capitulationist policy will prove disastrous, and not just for the Jews in France. Muslims will be further emboldened to threaten violence against the French state,, convinced that their threat of mob violence can force other changes in government policy, in everything from attempts to limit the number of Muslim economic migrants, to the deporting of Muslim criminals, to taking back control of the No-Go areas that have essentially been abandoned by the French Republic to the authority of local Muslims.

Macron tried “to correct the impression” by calling Herzog on Sunday to say that his BBC interview was not meant to suggest that Israel targets civilians, noted the official.

But what meaning can be given to a statement like this: ”Civilians are bombed. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy,” other than that Macron has abandoned his support of Israel at a critical moment in its campaign? Wouldn’t the most reasonable interpretation of that remark be that Macron thinks Israel is indeed targeting civilians and “must stop”?

Macron had diplomatic reasons for changing his tune, Christophe Barbier, a former editor of L’Epxress [sic] daily, said Sunday on BFMTV. “We’re a month after the tragedy of October 7, we’re past the emotional stage, we’re in the political one,” he said….

So a month later, we are all supposed to have gotten “beyond the emotional stage,” that is, it’s time to stop caring too much about the 1400 Israelis who were murdered, and the 239 Israelis who were kidnapped. Enough with the tears. It’s time for sober realpolitik, and for Macron, that means dispensing with any sign of solidarity with Israel and attempting, instead, to curry favor with the Muslims in France who, unlike the pacific and dignified Jews, can at any moment erupt in mob violence. Macron doesn’t want to have to deal with thousands of cars being burned, mayoral offices sacked, police stations attacked. He wants quiet — at any cost.

Nothing has changed on the ground in Gaza from when Macron had offered his support to Israel, except that the IDF has by now penetrated deep into Gaza City, has killed thousands of terrorists, destroyed nearly 160 tunnels, and has surrounded the Shifa hospital underneath which Hamas has its main headquarters. The IDF has made public even more evidence of the atrocities that took place on October 7, and exposed more completely how Hamas uses civilian structures, especially hospitals, to hide within and under. Morally, Israel is no different today than it was on October 7 when Macron offered support; its cause is still just, its army still admirable both in its deeds of derring-do and in the care it takes to try to minimize civilian casualties. The only change has been Macron’s heightened perception of a domestic threat: the Muslims in France have been holding disruptive, often violent “pro-Palestinian”and “anti-Israel” marches. Macron has decided it is more important to discourage those by publicly hectoring Israel, rather than to stand in solidarity with a beleaguered ally, now fighting the fourth war — after those of 1948, 1967, and 1973 — for what Israelis see as their very survival.