French President Emanuel Macron continues to escalate tensions with Israel over the conduct of the war, engaging in a testy exchange today (Tuesday) with Prime Minister Netanyahu over the importance of adhering to UN decisions on the war.
Macron told Netanyahu to not dismiss the importance of UN decisions and resolutions, including those regarding the importance of reaching a ceasefire, as Israel was founded by UNSC Resolution 181 partitioning Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state.
Netanyahu, for his part, shot back that "it was not a UN decision that established the State of Israel but the victory that was achieved in the War of Independence with the blood of our heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, including from the Vichy regime in France."
Regarding the importance of the UN today, Netanyahu said that "it would also be worthwhile to recall that in recent decades, the UN has approved hundreds of antisemitic decisions against the State of Israel, the purpose of which is to deny the one and only Jewish state's right to exist and its ability to defend itself."
During an earlier conversation between the two, Netanyahu said that "Israel would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide this and which does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping."
Netanyahu also said that he was "taken aback at President Macron's intention to host a conference in Paris on the issue of Lebanon, with participants such as South Africa and Algeria, which are working to deny Israel its fundamental right of self-defense and, in effect, reject its very right to exist."
