Israel: ‘France On Crusade’ After Calling For Palestinian State
by Stefan J. Bos, Worthy News Europe Bureau Chief
JERUSALEM/SINGAPORE (Worthy News) – Israel accused French President Emmanuel Macron of launching a “crusade against the Jewish state” on Friday, May 30, after he called for the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Macron also urged European countries to harden their stance on Israel if the humanitarian situation in Gaza did not improve. “The humanitarian blockade is creating a situation that is untenable on the ground,” Macron added at a joint press conference in Singapore with Prime Minister Lawrence Wong
“There is no humanitarian blockade. That is a blatant lie,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in response, defending its efforts to allow aid to enter the enclave. “But instead of applying pressure on the jihadist terrorists, Macron wants to reward them with a Palestinian state. No doubt its national day will be October 7,” it added in a statement.
The ministry referred to the date of Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 Jewish people and sparked the war in Gaza.
The war since then has killed around 54,000 Palestinians, the Hamas-run health authorities say, more than in any other of the countless rounds of fighting between the two sides.
Israel has given lower estimates and says nearly half of the dead, some 20,000, were Hamas fighters. Additionally, 1,600 “terrorists” have been killed on the same day, or shortly after, the October 7, 2023, massacre, Israeli sources say.
LIMITED RELIEF
Despite ongoing clashes, under growing international pressure, Israel partially ended an 11-week-long aid blockade on Gaza 10 days ago.
It allowed limited relief to be delivered through the United Nations or the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Israel said it imposed the blockade to prevent Hamas from receiving humanitarian aid and to pressure the group to release the remaining hostages taken from Israel.
Hamas-run authorities claim that Gaza suffers “severe shortages” of food and medicine, though Israel maintains Hamas has stolen much aid.
Yet advocacy groups accuse Israel of violating international law by using “starvation” as a weapon of war – a war crime, charges denied by Israel.
While visiting Singapore, French President Macron shared concerns over Gaza.
EUROPEAN NATIONS
He said Friday that European nations should pressure Israel, including keeping open the possibility of sanctions, if it did not help improve the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory.
“If we abandon Gaza, if we consider there is a free pass for Israel, even if we do condemn the terrorist attacks, we will kill our credibility,” Macron stressed.
He also called for recognizing a Palestinian state, with some conditions, “not only a moral duty but a political necessity.”
France is co-hosting with Saudi Arabia an international conference at the United Nations in New York meant to resurrect the idea of “a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.”
However, that outcome is opposed by the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who views such a state as “rewarding Hamas.”
In its statement Friday, the Israeli foreign ministry said: “Hamas, for its part, has already praised Macron’s statements. Hamas knows why.”
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