Netanyahu meets with Macron
Israeli leader holding talks in France amid Mideast tensions
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with France’s president, business leaders and members of France’s Jewish community during a trip to Paris that started Thursday.
The visit began with a dinner meeting at the Elysee Palace, where French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said he planned to share France’s “solidarity with Israel in the face of terrorism,” but also stress “the need for everyone to avoid measures likely to feed the spiral of violence.”
Macron also is offering to help revive long-stalled dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians.
Pro-palestinian activists plan a protest in Paris on Saturday to decry Macron’s decision to host Netanyahu at a volatile time in the Mideast conflict.
Upon departing for France, Netanyahu said Iran and its nuclear program would be “the main topic of our talk” when he meets with Macron.
Iran has vowed to destroy U.S. ally Israel, which makes a nuclear-armed
Iran an even greater international security threat.
Macron has criticized Iran’s lack of transparency over its nuclear activities and warned that its support for Russia’s war in Ukraine has exposed Iran to further sanctions and growing isolation.
Netanyahu’s trip comes during one of the deadliest periods of the Israeli-palestinian conflict in years.
An Israeli military raid last week killed 10 Palestinians, most of them militants. A Palestinian shooting attack a day later outside an east Jerusalem synagogue killed seven people.
Ahead of Netanyahu’s arrival in Paris, Israeli aircraft struck a rocket production workshop in the Gaza Strip early Thursday, the Israeli military said, hours after Palestinian militants fired a rocket toward Israel.
While in Paris, Netanyahu said he would meet with French business leaders interested in investing in Israel and representatives of the Jewish community before leaving Saturday night.
Earlier this week, the French government launched a plan aimed at better combating racism and antisemitism, including hate speech proliferating online, and raising awareness about the Holocaust.