By Barry Rubin
During a conversation when they thought nobody was listening French President
Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. President Barack Obama said nasty things about Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. A lot of the analysis about what this tells
us I think is rather misleading.
Regarding Sarkozy, French-Israel relations have been good and there have not
been major problems with Sarkozy. On one hand, Sarkozy has been far friendlier
to Israel than his Gaullist and Socialist predecessors. True, he is surrounded
by some hostile advisors, including the career staff at the Foreign Ministry,
but on the other hand there is a defense and counterterrorism establishment that
admires Israel.
Indeed, Sarkozy helped kill the Palestinian unilateral independence effort in
the UN Security Council, a major service to Israel. Yet France voted in favor of
the Palesstinian entry into the UNESCO organization. Incidentally, Sarkozy has
also not been a fan of Obama in the past.
Why suddenly has Sarkozy turned against Netanyahu? I can't prove it but I
think there is evidence for the following scenario. Sarkozy decided that he was
going to broker a major deal at the UN, showing that France was a leading great
power in the world. (A theme I think you have heard before is a major French
goal.) So he went to Netanyahu with a proposal: Israel would accept unilateral
independence for Palestine and Sarkozy would get Israel something from the
Palestinians (perhaps recognition of a Jewish state?).
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