Israel is not clever, when it comes to its political and military behavior about the UNIFIL and Lebanon. Such flights will do nothing for the security of Israel, but those will undermine the Israeli position.
there is unfortunately no position to undermine for Israel, at least not with the French.
Don’t forget that France has long ago decided to betray Israel and to side with the Arabs (even giving them the IAF-enhanced Mirage 5), and since this was a commercially very successful move, you can be sure that France will keep groveling to its Arab customers at every opportunity for the foreseeable future.
For those who have heard the comments of Alliot-marie and of her officers as they were going into Lebanon, there was never any doubt on which side they are.
Also, population composition: In the early and middle 20th century, France was merely an antisemitic country (Vichy and the rest). In the late 20th, it has become a partly-Arab country. And its positions on everything related to Jews or Israel are accordingly.
Wich is not new, mind you: already in 76, the government’s reaction at the Entebe rescue was “Israel is wrong to have committed a violation of the airspace of all those countries”. The so unbiased head of the govt was… Jacques Chirac.
Regarding the good observation that Alliot-Marie elected to make public a non-incident: She is one of the hopefuls for the next presidential election in 2007. Do you think she is beyond pandering to the Arab electors? hmmm…
Separately, the French soldiers’ position is pure posturing: How long would all of them survive, if they really opened fire on Tsahal? No matter how big their mouth, they are not eager to find out.
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