By Catherine Porter and Aurelien Breeden

When President Emmanuel Macron of France said over the weekend that countries should stop supplying Israel with weapons if they want a ceasefire, the reaction from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel was swift and scathing.

“As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilized countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “Yet President Macron and some other Western leaders are now calling for an arms embargo against Israel. Shame on them.”

“Let me tell you this,” he added. “Israel will win with or without their support, but their shame will continue long after the war is won.”

It wasn’t the first time Macron had suggested such a move; he said so last month at the United Nations General Assembly and argues that it is “inconsistent” to push for a ceasefire while supplying weapons. But this time his words seemed to strike a particularly raw nerve for Netanyahu.

Analysts said they were not surprised by Macron’s statement. He has tried to strike a delicate balance in his approach to the Middle East conflict, expressing support for Israel’s right to self-defence while also criticizing Israeli military operations and pleading for a ceasefire to stop growing civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip and now Lebanon — a former French protectorate.

They also said the statement fits with Macron’s personal style. He is intent on maintaining France’s traditional aspiration to be an independent international power and is known for bold and sometimes disruptive foreign policy.

Still, what Macron hoped to accomplish with comments that were all but certain to antagonize the Israeli prime minister was less clear, analysts say.

David Khalfa, a Middle East expert at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation who is about to publish a book on the fallout of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, said that the timing of Macron’s comments — just before the anniversary of that assault — was “particularly awkward”.

“In the short term, it clearly won’t help us be heard by the Israelis,” he said, adding that “there is a question mark hanging over the clarity of French diplomacy.”

France hardly sells any weapons to Israel, which receives more than 90% of its arms shipments from the United States and Germany, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks the global weapons trade.

Macron’s comments were widely seen as a sign of frustration with the United States. “If we call for a ceasefire, the consistent thing to do is not to supply the weapons of war,” he said at a news conference Saturday, adding that those who provide such weapons “cannot stand by our side each day and call for a cease-fire while continuing to supply them.”

But France has little leverage over US arms shipments, analysts say.

“He didn’t need to do that,” François Heisbourg, a French defence analyst, said of Macron’s comments. “It makes Macron look ineffective and not entirely consistent.”

Karim Émile Bitar, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at St. Joseph University in Beirut, said it was an example of Macron’s trademark “at the same time” approach to policymaking: constantly considering both sides of the equation.

“It’s complicated enough in domestic politics,” he said. “But in foreign policy, when you try to please both sides, you end up alienating both sides.”

Since the Hamas attacks on Israel a year ago, Macron has repeated his support of Israel and continually demanded the return of hostages held by Hamas. On Monday (7), he met in Paris with families of the two remaining French hostages, as well as families of French victims of the Oct. 7 attacks.

But Macron has also demanded that Israel follow international and humanitarian law to avoid civilian casualties and has called for ceasefires in both Gaza and Lebanon to make way for diplomatic and political resolutions.

At a commemorative ceremony in Paris on Monday night, organized by an umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, France’s prime minister vowed the government would do everything in its power to protect the Jewish community. But the mention of Macron’s name elicited boos and jeers from some in the audience.

And his attempts at a balancing act have sometimes been hard to read. Last year, Macron expressed support for an international coalition to fight Hamas on a visit to Israel; then, weeks later, he pushed for a ceasefire in particularly strong terms.

“It’s not the first time that there has been this kind of diplomatic zigzag,” Khalfa said of Macron’s comments on weapons shipments.

Although Macron had made similar remarks about stopping weapons shipments before Israel invaded Lebanon in pursuit of its enemy, Hezbollah, some analysts say they think the rising death toll there and the prospects of a larger land war may have contributed to his worry and frustration.

France has deep historical, cultural and emotional ties to Lebanon, where it sometimes plays a key role as a mediator. Macron has expended a lot of political capital in the former French protectorate, visiting Beirut after the 2020 port explosion and trying to push for changes to the country’s flailing political system.

“Lebanon is a place where France can still behave like a superpower, even though it’s no longer a superpower,” said Rym Momtaz, an expert in French foreign policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Europe, based in Paris.

For months now, France has been working with the United States to try to prevent the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel from blowing up into wider conflict. Last month, Macron and President Joe Biden announced a plan for a three-week cease-fire across the Lebanon-Israel border, expecting the warring parties to publicly embrace it.

Instead, in a humiliation for France and the United States, Israel vowed to keep fighting and soon killed Hezbollah’s leader.

“Macron has been coherent on one thing — for months, he’s been calling for a cease-fire,” Momtaz said. “The thinking is that if you continue supplying weapons, then a government like Netanyahu’s — who since October has proved time and time again that he doesn’t listen to advice — he does as he pleases.” In that case, she said, withholding weapons is “the only way to actually try to shape the behaviour”.

After Netanyahu’s outburst, the French president’s office attempted to smooth tensions over the weekend, reiterating that “France is Israel’s unwavering friend,” and noting that France had provided military assistance to help counter Iran’s missile attacks. Stressing the need for “diplomatic solutions,” the president’s office also deemed Netanyahu’s response “excessive and irrelevant to the friendship between France and Israel.”

On Sunday, the two leaders spoke over the phone. That conversation appeared to have done little to close the rift.

“The two leaders accept their differences of opinion, as well as their desire to be well understood by each other,” the French presidency said.

Macron’s comments were praised by some Arab countries like Qatar and Egypt, and domestically he was supported by politicians on the left who have long called for an arms embargo on Israel.

Few analysts, however, expect Macron’s words to have any immediate impact.

“Macron is not delusional,” Momtaz said. “He knows that he is not going to have a game-changing effect on the US administration’s military support to Israel. But what he is doing is sending a clear message to the rest of the world that France and maybe the Europeans have a different position than the Americans.”

-New York Times