A Nest of Ninnies: Emmanuel Macron

At the U.N., on its opening day, Emanuel Macron did not fail to berate Israel for its actions in Judea and Samaria against Hamas. He claimed that “Hamas n’a jamais pas sévi en Cisjordanie.” The verb “sévir” means “to rage,” “to crack down.” The French government deliberately misled the world by claiming the sentence meant only that “Hamas has never governed in Judea and Samaria.” Macron was thus dismissing Israeli claims that Hamas was a threat to Israelis in Judea and Samaria; apparently it is only a threat, we are supposed to believe, if it “governs” the territory.

British commentator Jake Wallis Simons noted in furious response to Macron:

Nine years in the Élysée. Dozens of security briefings. A seat at the top table of every Middle East summit going, and with especially strong views on the conflict, which tend to align, shall we say, on the side that opposes democracy. Yet still, somehow, the man does not know what Hamas is.

Here’s the worst of it. Two days before Macron intellectually soiled himself on the world stage, on the eve of Yom Kippur, Netanel Shukrun — a father of six and French citizen — was shot dead in his car by a Hamas gunman in Judea and Samaria. With his last breath, he told his son to run.

Macron did not say that Hamas “never governed” in Judea and Samaria, as the French now claim; he said that Hamas had never “raged” there. But of course it has been raging for decades in that territory, killing — or trying to — thousands of Israelis, as well as Palestinians who chafed at its rule. Prime Minister Netanyahu responded to Macron: “Netanyahu decries Macron’s ‘grotesque’ claim that Hamas ‘never operated’ in West Bank,” Times of Israel, September 23, 2026:

Israel shot back angrily Tuesday at French President Emmanuel Macron who, in an address to the United Nations, criticized Israeli actions in the West Bank and claimed Hamas was never active in the territory that is home to the Palestinian Authority.

“The grotesque absurdity of Emmanuel Macron’s statement is staggering,” said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to deliver a defiant address to the world body on Thursday.

“Hamas terrorists carry out attacks against Jews almost every day. They have murdered countless Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria,” it said, using the Biblical name for the West Bank, which Israel captured during the 1967 Six Day War. “Ignorance is no excuse for erasing their blood.”

Netanyahu’s office pointed to the deadly terror shooting in the West Bank on Sunday, the eve of Judaism’s holiest day of Yom Kippur. Israel said that the victim, father of six Netanel Shukrun, also had French citizenship….

Macron ended his remarks on Gaza with this plea: “Are we simply to stand by and watch this spectacle that should shame us all?” This “spectacle” is simply the attempt by Israel to crush the terror group Hamas in Gaza so that it no longer threatens either Israelis, or the Palestinians who have been subject in the Strip to its savage reign of terror.

Macron, of course, does not understand this. And he appears to be appealing to the so-called “international community” to force Israel — with what army? — to stop its campaign in Gaza. Like Guterres, he will soon be out of office — in his case by May 2027. One hopes that a true friend of Israel, Marine Le Pen, who is way ahead in the polls, will replace him. She will convey an entirely different message from the Elysée on Israel, and on the terror group Hamas, than that of hapless, hopeless, clueless, shameless Emanuel Macron.