Netanyahu Visits France to Press for More Iran Sanctions
By Jonathan Ferziger and Helene Fouquet
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seeking to build international support for tougher sanctions against Iran, flies to Paris today for his first visit since Francois Hollande became French president in May.
Netanyahu, who is running for re-election to a third term next year, will make a brief stop with Hollande tomorrow in the southwestern city of Toulouse and take part in a memorial ceremony for the three children and rabbi shot dead by a radical Islamist outside a Jewish school in March, according to the French president’s office.
The Israeli leader is making a fresh start in France after previous diplomatic strains that became evident when former President Nicolas Sarkozy was overheard at a Group of 20 summit last year telling President Barack Obama that Netanyahu was a liar and “I can’t stand him anymore.” Netanyahu hosted Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti in Jerusalem last week and plans to visit Germany in December to press harder on joint efforts to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
“This is another opportunity for Netanyahu to put the Iran issue on the world stage,” David Vidal, a European historian and emeritus professor at Tel Aviv University, said by telephone. “It’s also important for him to connect with members of the French Jewish community who have significant fears about their safety.”
Netanyahu took to the podium of the United Nations General Assembly with a cartoon rendering of a bomb last month to dramatize his campaign for imposing explicit “red lines” on Iran’s uranium-enrichment program, which he said would probably be able to produce an atomic weapon by late 2013.
‘Constructive Visit’
Other issues that may come up in talks with Hollande and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius will be the stalemated Israeli-Palestinian peace process and how to manage the instability in Syria and other neighboring Arab countries, aides to both leaders said.
“We’re looking forward to a constructive visit,” Mark Regev, Netanyahu’s spokesman, said by telephone.
Netanyahu is scheduled to join Hollande for a press conference after their noon meeting at the Elysees Palace in Paris, according to presidential spokesman Romain Nadal.
Hollande “is a friend of Israel,” Nadal said. “He is not setting his tone in comparison with his predecessors. He is looking to the future.”
Israeli National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror went to Paris as Netanyahu’s envoy in June, shortly after Hollande took office. The two leaders have never met, though they have spoken several times by phone, Nadal said. Hollande has met twice with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, he said.
Palestinian State
Netanyahu’s last trip to Paris in May 2011 accentuated his differences with Sarkozy, who prodded the Israeli leader in a magazine interview on the eve of the visit to put more energy into peace talks and accept the establishment of a Palestinian state.
“I don’t see France’s foreign policy making any major turn” from maintaining a balance between Israeli and Palestinian policies, Jean-Yves Camus, a researcher at the Paris-based Institute of International and Strategic Relations. “Stability with the traditional positions is what we should expect.”