Netanyahu speaks with Macron, lays out redlines on Hezbollah

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, today (Tuesday), spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron.

The Prime Minister told President Macron that he opposes a unilateral ceasefire, which would not change the security situation in Lebanon and would return the country to its previous state. He emphasized that Israel is operating against the Hezbollah terrorist organization to prevent it from threatening Israel’s citizens on the northern border and to enable them to return to their homes safely.

Prime Minister Netanyahu clarified that Israel would not agree to any arrangement that does not provide this and which does not stop Hezbollah from rearming and regrouping.

The Prime Minister also said that he was taken aback at President Macron’s intention to host a conference in Paris on the issue of Lebanon, with participants such as South Africa and Algeria, which are working to deny Israel its fundamental right of self-defense and, in effect, reject its very right to exist.

The Prime Minister’s Office stated following the conversation, “A reminder to the French President: It was not a UN decision that established the State of Israel but the victory that was achieved in the War of Independence with the blood of our heroic fighters, many of whom were Holocaust survivors, including from the Vichy regime in France.”

“It would also be worthwhile to recall that in recent decades, the UN has approved hundreds of antisemitic decisions against the State of Israel, the purpose of which is to deny the one and only Jewish state’s right to exist and its ability to defend itself.”