“I call on you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with determination, and to do so before a clear date: the Jewish New Year, September 23, 2025,” Netanyahu wrote in a letter to President Emmanuel Macron.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s letter “will not go unanswered,”said the Élysée Palace, adding that ”the Republic protects and will always protect its Jewish compatriots.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused French President Emmanuel Macron of “fueling the anti-Semitic fire” in France, an accusation firmly rejected by Paris.
“I call on you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with determination, and to do so before a clear date: the Jewish New Year, September 23, 2025,” Netanyahu wrote in a letter dated August 17. “Since your public statements attacking Israel and signaling recognition of a Palestinian state, anti-Semitism has increased,” he added.
In his letter, Benjamin Netanyahu also lists several recent incidents, including the ransacking of the entrance to the offices of the Israeli airline El Al in Paris, the assault of a Jewish man in Livry-Gargan, and rabbis “attacked in the streets of Paris.” “These incidents are not isolated. They are a scourge,” he wrote.
“It is not diplomacy, it is appeasement. It rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas’s refusal to free the hostages, emboldens those who menace French Jews and encourages the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets,” Netanyahu added.
He praised US President Donald Trump as a counterexample for his “fight” against anti-Semitic crimes and for “protecting American Jews.”
At the end of July, Emmanuel Macron announced that France would recognize a ‘’State of Palestine’’ at the UN General Assembly in September. The UN General Assembly scheduled for September ends on the 23rd, the date set by Benjamin Netanyahu in his letter.
On Tuesday, the French presidency denounced as “erroneous and abject” the accusation. The Israeli Prime Minister’s letter “will not go unanswered,” added the Élysée Palace, which also affirmed that “the Republic protects and will always protect its Jewish compatriots.” “The current period calls for seriousness and responsibility, not generalizations and manipulation,” the Élysée Palace said in a statement released to the press.
“Violence against the Jewish community is unacceptable. That is why, beyond condemnation, the Head of State has systematically asked all his governments since 2017—and even more so after the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023—to take the strongest possible action against the perpetrators of anti-Semitic acts,” the French presidency said in the statement.. In its “fight against anti-Semitism,” it recalls the inclusion of July 12 in the calendar of national commemorations, starting in 2026, “for the 120th anniversary of the recognition of Captain Dreyfus’ innocence.”
French European Affairs Minister Benjamin Haddad said France has “no lessons to learn in the fight against anti-Semitism.” He called for the issue of “anti-Semitism, which poisons our European societies,” not to be “exploited.” According to him, the French authorities have “always been extremely mobilized against anti-Semitism.”
According to Avi Pazner, a former Israeli ambassador to France, the confrontation between Emmanuel Macron and Benjamin Netanyahu has reached a personal level and plunged Franco-Israeli relations to their lowest point in half a century.
He told i24news that bilateral relations “have not been this tense in over fifty years” and are now at “one of the lowest points” in their history. He sees Macron’s stance on Israel as both a domestic political calculation and a diplomatic choice.