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PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron warned Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to “ignore United Nations decisions” during a weekly meeting with his ministers Tuesday, according to French media reports, confirmed by a participant in the meeting.
“Mr. Netanyahu must not forget that his country was created by a U.N. decision,” he is quoted as saying, referencing the U.N. General Assembly’s November 1947 vote that terminated the British mandate of Palestine and split the land into a Jewish and an Arab state.
Macron and Netanyahu have been trading barbs in recent days amid fears of an escalation of the conflict between Israel and the Hezbollah militant group, which risks engulfing Lebanon and its civilian population.
The French president recently called for a halt to arms deliveries to Israel in an interview with French radio, which triggered an angry response from the Israeli prime minister who declared “shame” on the French president.
Macron’s call not to ignore U.N. decisions refers to the situation in southern Lebanon and Israeli fire against U.N. peacekeepers, which 40 countries condemned in a statement Saturday. Paris had summoned the Israeli ambassador to France in wake of an incident in which two U.N. staff were wounded in south Lebanon.
On Monday, France’s Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu echoed these warnings from France, telling a journalist that it was a “problem” that Israel does not respect U.N. resolutions.
“It was a U.N. resolution that created Israel, one of the first,” he said on French television.
Laura Kayali contributed reporting.
