France’s Macron issues warning to Israel
The French leader has accused the IDF of “deliberately” targeting UN peacekeepers | French President Emmanuel Macron has reiterated his call for an arms embargo on Israel in response to the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. He also condemned recent attacks on United Nations peacekeepers in southern Lebanon, describing them as “totally unacceptable.” ● Two Sri Lankan peacekeepers with the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were injured this week after a Merkava tank fired at a watchtower at the force’s headquarters in the border town of Naqoura. Israel claims its forces fired at an immediate threat, but Macron insists that the strike was “deliberate,” echoing the view of the force’s spokesperson, who spoke to RT.
■ Israeli attacks on UN force has been ‘deliberate’ – peacekeepers spokesperson to RT (RT.com)
■ Why Macron wants off the Israel bandwagon (Rachel Marsden) | French President Emmanuel Macron would like Israel to slow its roll now, please. Because it’s acting like a spoiled brat who has been given a Ferrari by the West, and now behaves like the rules of the road don’t exist, blowing past every exit ramp en route to escalation with its neighbors. ■ And now the inevitable has happened: a head-on collision between Israeli and French interests. Because that’s the thing with spoiled brats – the day you say “No,” you, too, become a problem. ■ All this is happening now because Israel has crossed a red line for France in subjecting Lebanon to what the Western establishment would be blatantly calling an “invasion,” if Lebanon were Ukraine and Israel were Russia. French is spoken by about half of the Lebanese population and France considers the country to be within its sphere of influence, both linguistic and economic.