Israel Blocks France’s Participation in its Peace Talks With Lebanon
Israel Blocks France’s Participation in its Peace Talks With Lebanon
French President Macron and his habitual betrayal of Israel.
France has a long history in Lebanon, including holding the League of Nations Mandate for Lebanon and Syria, and a century of providing diplomatic support for the Francophone Lebanese Maronites. No doubt French President Emmanuel Macron thought it was altogether right and proper for France to be included in the negotiations between Israel and Lebanon that are now beginning in Washington. Israel, however, has refused to allow France to participate. For under Macron, France has become even more hostile to Israel than it was before his ascendance to the presidency.
More on Macron and why Israel has barred France from a seat at the negotiating table, can be found here: “Macron undermined Israel and defied the US, then asked for a Lebanon role – comment,” by Zvika Klein, Jerusalem Post, April 10, 2026:
Emmanuel Macron wants to be the peacemaker between Israel and Lebanon. You cannot embargo a country’s weapons, block its arms flights, condemn its military operations as “indiscriminate,” and then demand a seat at its negotiating table. That is not diplomacy. That is audacity.
Israel’s decision to exclude France from the direct talks with Lebanon, beginning Tuesday in Washington, is being framed in European capitals as a snub. It is not. An Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post’s Amichai Stein that “France’s conduct over the past year, including initiatives aimed at limiting Israel’s ability to fight in Iran, and a complete lack of willingness to take concrete steps to help Lebanon disarm Hezbollah, has led Israel to view France as an unfair mediator.” Israel did not disqualify France. France disqualified France.
On March 31, France refused to allow US military aircraft carrying supplies for Israel to transit French airspace, the first such denial since the Iran conflict began. A source in the Elysee Palace later confirmed that France’s position had been consistent “since the first day,” meaning the restriction applied throughout the war. Israel’s Defense Ministry suspended all procurement from France and initiated steps to terminate existing contracts. An Israeli official called it “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” A country that impedes weapons transfers to an ally in the middle of a war has chosen a side. That is not the posture of a neutral mediator….
Macron never condemned Hezbollah for its missile and drone fire into Israel, though he was quick to deplore Israel’s retaliatory attacks on Hezbollah targets in south Beirut. He did not provide weapons to the Lebanese National Army, which would have enabled it to take on Hezbollah. He imposed a partial arms embargo on weapons for Israel, keeping certain critical components made in France from reaching Israeli missile manufacturers, including Rafael, Elbit, and IAI. He did exempt “defensive” weapons from the embargo, and despite Macron, and with the knowledge of the French Defense Ministry, some French firms managed to interpret the category of “defensive weapons” broadly. And by way of riposte to Macron’s partial embargo, Israel, finally fed up with Macron’s mistreatment, imposed its own arms embargo, refusing to sell France its weaponry, not all of which could be obtained from other sellers.
After the end of the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, UN peacekeepers — UNIFIL troops, many of whom were French — were supposed to prevent Hezbollah combatants from establishing bases between the Litani River and the Lebanese border with Israel. They failed to do so. The Lebanese government does not like meddling by Macron; it agrees with Israel that Hezbollah must be disarmed and mistrusts the French, who have adopted an anti-Israel policy that ends up being a soft-on-Hezbollah policy. Like Israel, the Lebanese are counting on the U.S. to help them deal with the terror group that continues to defy the national government by not handing over its weapons.
In his only comment on the initial understandings reached in Islamabad, Macron took the side of Iran and Pakistan, and against Israel, by claiming that an IDF “ceasefire” in Lebanon was part of the agreement, a position that Iran and the Pakistanis support, but that both the U.S. and Israel roundly reject.
Macron prevented American military planes delivering weapons to Israel to use its airspace. He put in place a partial arms embargo on French weapons for Israel. He was the first Western leader to recognize a “state of Palestine.” He has said that Israel’s policy in Gaza is “shameful.” He did nothing to enforce UN Resolution 1701 in Lebanon, which required that Hezbollah disarm, even though French troops were on the ground in Lebanon as part of UNIFIL. He has claimed that in Islamabad, the initial tentative agreement included a ceasefire in Lebanon, even though the U.S. and Israel immediately denied that claim.
There is a dismissive French phrase that goes thus: “Sois-belle et tais-toi”: “Be beautiful and shut up.” So we can say to the vain and feckless Macron, after a quick sex-change operation, “Sois-beau et tais-toi.” And we might even add, in the pneumatic bliss of a petit bleu to Monsieur le Président that my friend Odile once sent to me: “Fais un petit effort.”
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons, European Union.
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