French President Emmanuel Macron will include Israel on a whirlwind Middle East trip next spring, in a move designed to help regional peace initiatives and promote a two-state solution.
The visit reciprocates Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own trip to France last July when Mr. Macron hit out at those who still deny France’s direct complicity in the Holocaust.
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, Mr. Macron stood alongside Mr. Netanyahu at remembrance ceremonies recalling 75 years since a mass roundup of French Jews outside Paris and insisted, “it was indeed France that organized this.” He said “not a single German” was directly involved, but instead blamed French police collaborating with the occupying Nazis.
France’s participation and responsibility in the Holocaust has long been a sensitive issue in France and was only officially recognised in 1995 by then president Jacques Chirac.
As for Mr. Macron’s Middle East trip, Reuters reports that besides Israel and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Jordan will also be scheduled for a presidential visit.
“We will continue our efforts with the United Nations to find a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine, living safely side-by-side within borders recognized by the international community, with Jerusalem at the capital of both states,” Mr. Macron told a gathering of French ambassadors in Paris when announcing the tour schedule.
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