The French Betrayal of Israel and Azerbaijan
With friends like France, who needs enemies?
By Mordechai Kedar
France is one of the most powerful countries in Western Europe. It plays a major role in NATO, its economy is the second in the EU after Germany and culturally France is the beacon of Westernism, liberalism, secularism and rationalism.
However, recently large parts of the human landscape in France have been replaced by migrants from the Middle East. The current estimation is that the Islamic component of the French population is no less than 10% and this figure is on the rise.
Muslims in France have significant influence on French policies and the result is a clear political bias in favor of Iran, against Israel and Israel’s best ally, Azerbaijan, the enemy of Iran. This bias has some implications:
France backs the International Criminal Court and its “fight against impunity”. After the ICC prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant, The French foreign ministry said: “France supports the International Criminal Court, its independence and the fight against impunity in all situations.” Israel’s struggle against the ISIS-like Hamas is not important enough in the eyes of the French policy makers.
While U.S. President Joe Biden called the legal step against Israeli officials “outrageous”, the French foreign ministry took a different stance. Israel is “a democratic state that must respect international law in the conduct of a war that it did not itself start,” French Foreign Minister Stephane Séjourné noted. This is absurd: ICC will never hunt HAMAS but now will be able to arrest Israelis and yet, the French government supports the ICC.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Paris has walked a thin line and has reduced arms exports to Israel without completely severing military ties. In March, France’s defense minister Lecornu denied allegations from investigative journalists that France supplied components for ammunition used by the Israeli army in its Gaza campaign. Lecornu said he had ordered civil servants to be “even stricter” in examining exports to Israel since October 7, 2023.
The French foreign minister said on 18 December 2023, a day after meeting Palestinian farmers in Ramallah: “France will impose measures on Israeli settlers who have attacked Palestinians in the occupied West Bank”.
France follows the anti-Jewish campaign against the alleged “settler violence” and bases its policy vis-à-vis Israel on UN figures which show that daily “settler attacks” have more than doubled since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing assault on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the violence this year, including in attacks by settlers”.
Israelis sense the anti-Israeli atmosphere in France. In a survey of 1,000 Israeli adults, 55% said French society was antisemitic, a figure significantly higher than their rating of the levels of Jew-hatred in Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom. The survey, conducted online in February and March and published on Thursday, May 2nd, is part of a larger poll headed by Gisela Dachs, a professor from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The polling comprises groups of 800-1,000 respondents in each of the five countries sampled: Israel, Germany, United Kingdom, France and Poland.
France also attacks Israel’s ally, Azerbaijan. France has accused Azerbaijan of meddling in its Pacific archipelago territory of New Caledonia, a French colony which wants independence. Colony? Today? Yes, France still colonizes no less than 13 places outside of France: in the Caribbean Sea, in the Indian Ocean and in the Pacific and yet, Azerbaijan is “the bad guy” according to the French discourse. The recent unrest in New Caledonia – one of the French colonies – was ignited by a new electoral law perceived by the indigenous Kanak population as discriminatory. This law allows people, mainly French, who have lived in New Caledonia for at least ten years the right to vote in local elections, which pro-independence supporters argue will dilute the indigenous Kanak vote.
The French government points to the sudden appearance of Azerbaijani flags at Kanak independence protests and the backing of separatists by groups linked to Baku. Azerbaijan has vehemently denied any involvement, describing the accusations as baseless. “We completely reject the baseless accusations,” said Ayhan Hajizadeh, a spokesperson for Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry. “We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”
Speaking to POLITICO, a French intelligence official granted anonymity to discuss sensitive issues of national security, claimed without any substantial proof, that “we’ve detected activities from Russia and Azerbaijan in New Caledonia for weeks, even months. They’re pushing the narrative of France being a colonialist state.” It is easy to blame somebody else for the consequences of its own discriminative policy. In addition, the official forgot that France itself is meddling in the Middle East and Caucasus with impudence.
French policy in the Caucasus and the Middle East leads to strengthening Russia and Iranian proxies, Israeli experts says.
France decided to supply weapons to Lebanon and Armenia, knowing that these weapons will undoubtedly be handed to Hezbollah, Iran and Russia. France will provide armored personnel carriers to the Lebanese Army to be used in the areas that are controlled by Hezbollah, despite all the evidence that western weapons provided to the Lebanese Army have ended up in the hands of the Iran through its proxy, Hezbollah.
“There is a risk that Western military equipment, weapons, and armaments will end up in the hands of Hezbollah to be used against Israel. The weaponry and ammunition were provided to the Lebanese army by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and other European countries. These include anti-tank missiles, portable air-defense systems, surveillance equipment and various electronic systems. They are quite likely to be aimed at Israel in the next conflict,” was the conclusion made by Israeli think tank Alma in June 2023.
The picture which appears from these reports is clear: France, a nuclear superpower which plays an important role in the global arena, is implementing more and more anti-Israeli and anti-Azerbaijani policies in order to appease the Muslim population in France which hates Israel and the Jews alike. Since – in general – Muslims in France support the Iranian threat on Israel and Azerbaijan, the French government adjusts its policies to the sentiments and expectations of the Muslim migrants who occasionally take to the streets to violently impose their agenda on the French authorities.
The only question which remains is: will France return to support its traditional friends and allies or will it sink into the weak image of the West, which should realize that it must start the necessary action against its enemy, Iran, rather than stabbing its allies headed by Israel and Azerbaijan, in the back.