Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today began a three-day visit to France, his first in Europe after being re-elected in November, to meet French President Emmanuel Macron and address the complex balances in the area following the outbreak of the Russian war in Ukraine.
Both leaders will have a working dinner in which, according to the Israeli Government office, they will talk above all about the issue that worries Netanyahu the most: Iran, an enemy of Israel and increasingly closer to Moscow, to whom it supplies weapons. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Israel has remained neutral and has not wanted to position itself or send military material, despite the fact that it is one of the great arms powers. He did not want to harm his relationship with Moscow, which has troops in Syria, a neighboring and enemy country.
However, this rapprochement of Iran with Russia could cause Israel to rethink its position. On Wednesday, the day before his visit to Paris, Netanyahu had already said that he did not rule out sending material to Ukraine, to which Russia responded with a warning: the country that sends weapons “has to understand that we will consider them as legitimate targets for the Russian forces,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Iran has also accused Israel in recent days of being behind several attacks against its nuclear infrastructure. In this regard, Paris believes that “it is necessary to be very firm with Iran” because of this aid to Russia in the war and because “its nuclear program continues to evolve to a point that is dangerous,” diplomatic sources told the AFP agency.
The nuclear pact is also on the agenda of both leaders. This was signed in the time of Barack Obama between the US, Europe and Iran, and forced this country to limit the atomic program in exchange for the progressive lifting of the sanctions that had been imposed on it. Donald Trump ended this agreement and hardened his hand again. Europe is in favor of returning to this pact, considering that isolated Iran could be more dangerous, but Israel does not want any kind of agreement.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned a few months ago that Tehran has a very ambitious program underway, which is advancing rapidly and has the capacity to manufacture an atomic bomb, although “without the intention of doing so.”
The Israeli’s visit to Paris comes amid fierce clashes between Israelis and Palestinians, which have left dozens dead in recent weeks. Macron and Netanyahu had not met since January 2020, just before the pandemic broke out, although the Frenchman called him to congratulate him on his victory. The visit has been somewhat impromptu and was agreed upon in the telephone call that Macron made to him last week to express his condolences after one of the attacks in Jerusalem that left seven dead.
In this context of “growing tensions, the President of the Republic recalls the need to avoid all measures likely to fuel the machinery of violence”, as well as “his availability to contribute to the return to dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis”, according to the Elysium.
Before lunch Netanyahu also met with the Jewish community in Paris and with businessmen “of the first level in the financial sphere”. Some companies have threatened to leave the territory after his re-election. Netanyahu, who returned to power in December in a coalition with far-right and ultra-Orthodox right-wing parties, is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and taking bribes, and his new government.
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