{"id":354967,"date":"2025-08-18T20:05:16","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/354967\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T20:05:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T20:05:16","slug":"france-threatens-strong-response-if-israel-closes-its-jerusalem-consulate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/354967\/","title":{"rendered":"France threatens ‘strong response’ if Israel closes its Jerusalem consulate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israeli plans to close France\u2019s consulate in Jerusalem would provoke a \u201cstrong response\u201d from Paris, a French Foreign Ministry spokesperson said on Monday.<\/p>\n

The statement followed reports<\/a> that Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar is pushing for Israel to close the French consulate in the capital, in response to French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s intention to recognize a Palestinian state. Macron\u2019s declaration in July that France would recognize a State of Palestine at the UN next month kicked off a series of Western countries saying they would follow suit.<\/p>\n

The French Foreign Ministry spokesperson said in a statement that Paris had not received any official notice of such a move, but warned against it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have not received any official notification from the Israeli authorities regarding this step, which could seriously harm our bilateral relations and provoke a strong response,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

In late July, Macron announced<\/a> on social media that his government would recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations in September, a step he called consistent with his country\u2019s \u201chistoric commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries have since planned similar announcements, or have floated doing so.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/p>\n

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, left, and French President Emmanuel Macron hold a joint press conference in London, July 10, 2025. (Leon Neal\/Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

Israel has rejected recognition of a Palestinian state as a \u201creward for Hamas\u201d that hurts chances of a ceasefire in Gaza. In July, the Knesset voted 71-13 for a symbolic motion<\/a> in favor of annexing the West Bank.<\/p>\n

France has had a diplomatic presence in Jerusalem dating back to the 17th century. The current building was opened in 1932, and was seen as a sign of France\u2019s desire to reassert its historical role in the holy land.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s Jerusalem consulate \u2014 along with those of the UK, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Belgium, Spain, and Sweden \u2014 predates the founding of Israel and operates without official accreditation to the state. These eight missions serve as their countries\u2019 channels to the Palestinian Authority and handle a range of issues within Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

France is not the only country to face retaliation from Sa\u2019ar. Earlier today, the foreign minister revoked the visas<\/a> of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority in response to two recent decisions from Canberra: to recognize a Palestinian state, and to bar far-right MK Simcha Rothman from entering the country.<\/p>\n

In a social media post on Monday, Sa\u2019ar called<\/a> those decisions \u201cshameful and unacceptable,\u201d and said Australia\u2019s ban on Rothman and former justice minister Ayelet Shaked \u201cfuel\u201d rising antisemitism in the country.<\/p>\n

Lazar Berman contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tAlready a member? Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli plans to close France\u2019s consulate in Jerusalem would provoke a \u201cstrong response\u201d from Paris, a French Foreign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-354967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115051569229976060","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}