French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments that Israel owes its existence to a United Nations resolution have sparked unease in France, with the President given a furious rebuke by the upper house speaker but also facing disquiet from within his own ranks.
- The remarks attributed to Mr. Macron during a cabinet meeting on October 15, 2024 that Israel needed to adhere to UN resolutions in its campaigns in Lebanon and Gaza as they were created by the world body have angered Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
- The French President was referring to the resolution adopted in November 1947 by the United Nations General Assembly on the plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.
- However, some leaders questioned if Mr. Macron had taken account of the 1917 British Balfour Declaration, which supported the creation of a Jewish homeland, and even the Holocaust and its consequences.
- The Balfour Declaration was a public pledge by Britain in 1917 declaring its aim to establish “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.
- It was made during World War I (1914-1918) and was included in the terms of the British Mandate for Palestine after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.
- The mandate system, set up by the Allied powers, was a thinly veiled form of colonialism and occupation.
- The system transferred rule from the territories that were previously controlled by the powers defeated in the war – Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria – to the victors.
- The declared aim of the mandate system was to allow the winners of the war to administer the newly emerging states until they could become independent.
