In 1967, the Israeli public found France’s fecklessness infuriating, dangerous and confusing. Today, Israelis shrug.

By Rami Chris Robbinsn, JNS

With the ink dry on the International Criminal Court’s phony arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the chorus of European village idiots is already clamoring for more.

In addition to imprisoning Israel’s prime minister, they wish to expand France’s Oct. 5 arms embargo of Israel to all of Europe. The effort is gaining traction. The ICC’s endorsement of “war crimes” gives cover to supporters of terror, antisemites and the willfully ignorant. A crescendo is coming.

This is not the first French embargo of Israel or France’s first betrayal of the Jewish state. France, once a staunch Israeli ally, announced its last embargo on June 2, 1967.

That was just 72 hours before the start of the Six-Day War, as more than 130,000 Egyptian soldiers and 900 tanks had been massed on Israel’s southern frontier. Jordan mobilized 56,000 soldiers and 270 tanks to Israel’s east. Syria was poised to attack from the north with 50,000 men.

“Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel,” said Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. The war’s aim, according to other Arab leaders, includes targeting and murdering Jewish civilians.

A well-intentioned but fruitless plan by then-President Lyndon Johnson to bust open Egypt’s naval blockade, Operation Red Sea Regatta, amounted to nothing. Israel’s last major ally and arms supplier was France.

For 15 years beginning in 1953, the Franco-Israeli relationship had been strong and bilateral. Israel had provided ground forces to help France and the United Kingdom briefly retake the Suez Canal in 1956. Israeli experts served in support roles in the French military. Israeli submarine crews trained with French counterparts. The French played a role in helping Israel become a nuclear power.

Yet, in 1967, as Arab armies surrounded Israel, France quit without warning. French President Charles de Gaulle announced the end of the alliance and the beginning of an embargo. It was effective immediately.

France started by impounding 50 Mirage 5J fighter bombers that Israel had bought and paid for six months earlier for $200 million. Moreover, Israeli aeronautical engineers have helped France improve the design and performance of the Mirage over the years.

The jets were badly needed to defend civilian populations. The 11th-hour embargo was one of the greatest betrayals of modern diplomatic history.

In 1967, the Israeli public found France’s fecklessness infuriating, dangerous and confusing. Today, Israelis shrug.

The 1967 French arms embargo was a serious threat to Israel’s security, but the 2024 French arms embargo is not, even if it expands to other European Union countries. Israel has pursued a strategy of quasi-independence for its essential war materiel. It is even a leading global exporter of arms with 2.4% of the worldwide market. In 2013, Israel shipped arms worth $1.15 billion.

Israel’s edge is in high-tech and higher-profit weapons. These include guided munitions, missiles, missile-defense systems, advanced radars, avionics, cyber warfare and bleeding-edge military computing hardware and software.

As to what it still needs to import, after the 1967 betrayal by France, Israel found better allies and suppliers. It forged durable relationships with the United States and Germany, the best two arms partners on the planet. These trading relationships are bilateral.

Israel provided the United States with 10% of all its arms imports from 2021 until 2023 (total value: $331 million), according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SIPRI arms transfer database. It accounted for 4.4% of Germany’s arms imports during the same period.

As to global exports, there is a remarkable difference between Israel and France. Israel sells arms mostly to stable or democratic countries. In addition to the United States and Germany, it supplies India, the Philippines and others.

You cannot say the same about France’s customers. The French sell arms nearly indiscriminately. Customers need not be democratic, free or peaceful. The French sell weapons to nations with poor human-rights records, instability and civil wars. They have even sold arms to dictators that attack civilians.

For example, France sold armored vehicles to violent dictator Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe in 1999. They sold missiles to Hugo Chávez in 2002. They shipped mortars to Rwanda in 1991. They sold helicopters in 2009 and 2017 to Communist thug Evo Morales of Bolivia, who murdered and imprisoned members of his democratic opposition.

That’s not the end of it. France furnished missiles to Lebanon in 2019. In 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre, France sold the Chinese Communist Party helicopters, missiles and naval guns. They sold the military Junta of Myanmar ship engines in 2015. They sold Russian President Vladimir Putin helicopters in 2013 as he armed Syrian dictator Bashar Assad.

French amorality is good for business. The French are today the second largest arms exporter behind the United States, with 11% of the global arms market.

In the Middle East and wider region, France also sells weapons to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Somalia, Turkey, Iraq, Morocco, Pakistan, Oman, Kuwait, Brunei, Bahrain and Algeria.

It seems that anyone can buy French arms. Except Jews.

Israel has done fine without French arms for two generations. The real question is how a morally bankrupt France—one that sells arms to dictators while ignoring the plight of innocent Jewish hostages in the Gaza Strip—can justify its existence.