{"id":27752,"date":"2026-05-30T21:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T21:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/27752\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T21:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T21:27:08","slug":"frederic-journes-is-wrong-to-claim-israels-anger-with-france-is-staged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/27752\/","title":{"rendered":"Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Journ\u00e8s is wrong to claim Israel’s anger with France is ‘staged’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his recent op-ed, French Ambassador Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Journ\u00e8s<\/a> laments what he calls the \u201cstaged hostility\u201d of the Israeli public toward France. He paints a picture of a misunderstood ally, wounded by the \u201canger\u201d of a nation at war.<\/p>\n

As a citizen of France, the United States, and Israel, someone who equally loves the cultures of my three countries, and someone who is politically active against the current Israeli government, I feel uniquely qualified to tell the ambassador: you are not being misunderstood. You are being seen with painful clarity.<\/p>\n

The ambassador suggests that the rift between our nations is a matter of \u201cdiverging opinions.\u201d It is not. It is a matter of actions that have systematically undermined Israel\u2019s security and moral standing at its most vulnerable moment.<\/p>\n

The relationship between Israel and France<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at the timeline the ambassador conveniently glosses over.<\/p>\n

After the horrors of October 7, President Emmanuel Macron was the very last Western leader to visit Israel. While former US president Joe Biden, former German chancellor Olaf Scholz, and Former British prime minister Rishi Sunak arrived with speed and moral clarity, the \u00c9lys\u00e9e hesitated. This was not \u201cdiplomatic nuance\u201d; it was a signal of where we stood on the priority list.<\/p>\n

\"FrenchFrench President Emmanuel Macron attends a press conference after the multinational virtual summit at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, France, April 17, 2026. (credit: Tom Nicholson\/Pool via REUTERS)<\/p>\n

Weeks later, when the streets of Paris saw a terrifying surge in Jew-hatred, a march against antisemitism was organized. In a move that shocked the French-Jewish community and Israelis alike, President Macron refused to participate. For a leader who speaks so often of \u201cRepublican values,\u201d his absence was a thunderous abdication of moral leadership.<\/p>\n

The ambassador defends France\u2019s stance<\/a> on Lebanon, but he ignores the rhetoric that accompanied it. To hear Macron accuse Israel of \u201cspreading barbarism in the region\u201d as it fought to stop Hezbollah\u2019s relentless rocket fire was a breaking point. It felt less like a strategic critique and more like a defense of France\u2019s historical raison d\u2019\u00eatre in Lebanon at the expense of Israeli lives. To use the word \u201cbarbarism\u201d against the victims of October 7 while they fight an Iranian proxy is an inversion of reality that no \u201cfriend\u201d should utter.<\/p>\n

Then came the diplomatic sucker punch: the announcement of an upcoming, unconditional recognition of a Palestinian state. By moving toward recognition then, without a negotiated settlement or the release of our brothers and sisters still rotting in Hamas tunnels, France effectively rewarded the October 7 massacre. This move did not advance peace; it actively derailed the delicate negotiations to free our hostages by signaling to Hamas that it need only wait for the West to hand it a victory.<\/p>\n

To add insult to injury, France then moved to boycott Israeli defense companies at major exhibitions. How can a nation claim to support our \u201cright to self-defense\u201d while simultaneously banning the very tools we need to exercise that right?<\/p>\n

A diplomatic double standard<\/p>\n

Ambassador Journ\u00e8s, you claim there is a \u201cdouble standard\u201d being applied to France. On the contrary, we are simply applying the same standard to you that you apply to us<\/a>. We see the consistency with which France treats Israeli security as a secondary concern to its own Mediterranean grandstanding.<\/p>\n

I am not a fan of the current Israeli government. I protest its policies and worry for our democracy. But being a critic of my government does not make me suicidal for my country. Loving France does not mean I must accept its gaslighting.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t need \u201csmooth conversations,\u201d Mr. Ambassador. We need an ally that doesn\u2019t treat our survival as a bargaining chip for its own regional relevance.<\/p>\n

Our anger isn\u2019t \u201cstaged.\u201d It is the natural response of a people that expected more from the patrie of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity.<\/p>\n

The writer is an investor based in Tel Aviv, a former secretary-general of the French Union of Jewish Students, and a former board member of UJA-NY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his recent op-ed, French Ambassador Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Journ\u00e8s laments what he calls the \u201cstaged hostility\u201d of the Israeli…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3891,20317,1385,430,5,63],"class_list":["post-27752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-ambassador","tag-boycott","tag-diplomacy","tag-european-union","tag-france","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}