Emmanuel Macron calls for the international coalition against the Islamic State to also fight Hamas

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, began a two-day trip to Israel this Tuesday with a complicated mission: to show firm support for Israel in the fight against Hamas but, at the same time, to mark the limits of its actions in Gaza so that there is no more cruelty towards civilians. Send a message outside the home, but also inside, since France is the EU country where the most Jews live, but also the most Muslims.

In this diplomatic balancing act, he has asked to include Hamas as an objective of the international coalition that fights the Islamic State (Daesh), but he has also said that the fight against terrorism “must be relentless, but not without rules, because we are democracies that fight against terrorism, but that respect the rules of war,” he said in a joint appearance after meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, who warned him that Hamas “are the new Nazis”, who “also threaten Europe.”

Macron is referring to the coalition that was created in 2014 under US leadership in Iraq to help the country combat the Islamic State.. Elysée sources have explained that it is about “taking inspiration from the experience” of this coalition and “seeing what aspects can be replicated with Hamas.”. The idea is to discuss it with the allies and Israel. This coalition was not limited only to operations on the ground, but also involved training soldiers, sharing information and pursuing terrorist financing.

Macron travels to Israel after the US president, Joe Biden, the German chancellor and the British prime minister have done so. He arrives later, but in his message he has tried to go further and be more forceful in both senses.. On the one hand, to please Israel, showing its support in the fight against terrorism to the point of asking that Hamas be included in the list of objectives to be defeated, along with the Islamic State, by the international coalition.

It also sought to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, by marking the red lines in “Israel's right to defend itself”, such as giving “the population access to humanitarian aid” and “restoring electricity to hospitals”, which electricity ” “Do not use it to wage war.”. Macron is the only Western leader who has met with the leader of the Palestinian Authority, Abu Mazen. He did it this afternoon in Ramallah.

The Frenchman, who defends a two-state solution, has warned that for peace in the region to be lasting, a political process must be opened in which the Palestinian cause is taken into account.. “Hamas must be fought, but the Palestinian cause must be heard,” he asked.. “Israel must accept the legitimate right of the Palestinians to a state, with Israel's security as the first condition,” the president said.

The visit has a message in an external key, but also in a domestic key, since the largest Jewish community in Europe, but also the Muslim community (10%) live in French territory.. In recent weeks there have been 588 anti-Semitic attacks in the country. The country is on maximum alert for a terrorist attack, after the jihadist attack more than a week ago in an institute in the north of the country in which a teacher was stabbed to death..

France is the country in Europe with the most victims in jihadist attacks. “We fight against a common enemy” which is terrorism, Macron told Netanyahu. “The Islamic State is not a problem that is thousands of kilometers away, but in the banlieue of Paris,” Benjamin Netanyahu told him. “We are in war. It is civilization against barbarism,” said the Israeli.

France counts 30 French-Israeli citizens among the victims after the terrorist attacks of October 7 and there are another nine who are missing or have been taken hostage by Hamas. As soon as he arrived in the country this Tuesday, Macron met with the relatives of some of the victims and said that the priority is to free the hostages.

Macron continues his trip until tomorrow and will meet this Wednesday with other regional leaders, specifically the King of Jordan and the president of Egypt. He has also warned of the risk of the conflict spreading in the region and has indicated that Hizbullah or Iran must stay out of it: “I warn the factions that, in the region, threaten Israel not to run the risk of opening a new front”: “Let us do everything to not add more tears to tears and more blood to blood.”