Gideon Sa’ar has thus far been a nimble and effective foreign minister at a challenging time for Israel. He knows when to be diplomatic, as when he rightly defended the visiting German foreign minister from Itamar Ben-Gvir’s insults: “Germany is a friendly country, and Foreign Minister Wadephul is a friend of Israel. This does not change even when there are disagreements between us.”
But he also knows when to go on the offensive. Not every fight is worth picking, but there are moments when Israel’s critics unquestionably err in significant ways, and Sa’ar must put them on the defensive.
One such moment was the thoughtless rush toward recognizing a Palestinian state precisely when it would do the most harm to all parties. French President Emmanuel Macron did the most damage, but the UK’s Keir Starmer and Canada’s Mark Carney gave the issue a momentum that distracted everyone involved from the war and the hostages.
Israel had bent over backwards to produce a cease-fire agreement, and the pressure was on Hamas. Then the three stooges jumped into the fray to recognize a “state of Palestine” and signal to Hamas that these three countries had the terror group’s back. Hamas then blew up the talks, since the West made clear it would gain the benefit of a cease-fire without having to make any concessions to Israel—most significantly, it wouldn’t have to free any hostages.
The lives this blockheaded intervention cost, and the damage it did to attempts to free Gazans from Hamas, make this blunder an unforgettable one. And I mean that literally: France, the UK, and Canada should not be allowed to forget it, not in the near future, anyway. On Tuesday, Sa’ar was at the UN with a reminder:
“There are countries that acted, also in this building, to pressure Israel, instead of Hamas, during sensitive days in the negotiations by attacking Israel, campaigning against Israel, and the announcement of a recognition of a virtual Palestinian state. They gave Hamas free gifts and incentives to continue this war. They directly assassinated the hostage deal and cease-fire. Let me be clear: These countries prolonged the war.”
The result was that Hamas officials used the recognition promises and the West’s turn against Israel to argue for the wisdom and justification, from the Palestinian perspective, of the Oct. 7 attacks. There is nothing that could possibly be worse for the cause of peace than lending any credence to the idea that Oct. 7 should be repeated. And yet, that’s exactly what France, the UK, and Canada have done.
These are harsh critiques, but they are fair and must be repeated. Israel is often treated as the only state (or governing entity) that is responsible for the mistakes it makes. To the world, consequences are for Israelis and Israelis alone.
There is wide understanding, well beyond Israel, that the recognition scheme cooked up by Macron has indeed done precisely the damage that Sa’ar suggests. Who is going to clean that up? Israel has enough on its plate at the moment that it shouldn’t have to follow Emmanuel Macron around with a broom.
And yet these countries’ leaders don’t feel the need to even show remorse. After the cease-fire fell apart, Hamas (and Palestinian Islamic Jihad) released videos of Israeli hostages starving to death, one of whom was being made to dig his own grave, in the style of the Nazis. Did the three stooges threaten to withhold their recognition of Palestinian statehood in response? No: Threats, like consequences, are only for Israelis.
In the course of a few days, it was revealed that the pictures of Palestinian starvation were misleading and the pictures of Israeli starvation were 100 percent accurate. At that moment, Macron, Starmer, and Carney had an easy layup: Show some anger, some genuine outrage, some basic humanity. Rally Europe against Hamas. Take punitive actions against actual war criminals. Get the EU to back off on threats to ice trade agreements with Israel.
Or, here’s a crazy idea: Admit your mistake. Show some humility and apologize.
Until they do, Sa’ar is right to keep the pressure on.
