French ambassador dismisses Hizbullah ban

The Jerusalem Post:

Hilary Leila Krieger

French Ambassador to Israel Gerard Araud belittled efforts to have Hizbullah placed on the EU's list of terrorist organizations as "feel-good diplomacy" that "wouldn't make the slightest difference."

He also said that Israel had refused an EU offer to send peace-keeping troops to Gaza, and that France stands poised again to push to bring Iran before the Security Council to keep it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Araud made the comments during a lecture he gave on "France and the Middle East" at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies on Tuesday.

Israel has long urged the EU to put Hizbullah on its list of terror organizations, but Araud questioned the benefit when asked by a member of the audience why France doesn't do so.

"What would be the consequence?" he asked. "Nothing."

Instead, he said, labeling the party a terror group would only give it an excuse to rally the Arab world with the claim that "all the world is against us; it's an American-Zionist plot."

France, he said "doesn't want to give them that pleasure."

What it does want, Araud explained, is to give Hizbullah "a share in the democratic process and [to understand] that in this democratic process there's no place for weapons and for terrorism."

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mark Regev differed with Araud's view.

"Our assessment is that by putting Hizbullah on the terror list, we would be effectively hampering that organization's ability to organize itself in Europe," he said, pointing to Hamas's limited capacity to raise money and function in Europe after the EU put it on the list.

Araud stressed that Israel and France shared the same aim of seeing Hizbullah disarmed, but it's a goal only the Lebanese could actually achieve.

He also said the countries shared a common interest in preventing Iran from becoming a militarized nuclear power, which "could mean the collapse of the non-proliferation system throughout the world," and that France wanted to see the UN take action.

Unless Iran's policy changed, he warned, in another month or two months, "we are going to try again to go to the Security Council."

He called the Iranians "very bright, shrewd negotiators" and described the European team engaging them as "not naive," noting his own sense at the outset of their discussions that France had only "a one in ten chance of success."

Asked about Iran's calls for Israel to abandon nuclear weapons, Araud responded: "It's a joke... It's a distraction. That simply is not in the game. The game is between the international community and Iran."

After his formal lecture, Araud mentioned that both France and the EU had brought up the possibility of putting peace-keeping troops in Gaza, but Israel had indicated it didn't want an "international presence between Tzahal and the terrorists."

Regev concurred that Israel had not acceded to "a third-party security presence" at the Egypt-Gaza Rafah crossing due to fears it would limit their ability to fight terror, among other concerns.

When it comes to the chaos in Gaza, Araud said that the Palestinians needed "more time" and Western bolstering of the moderates led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Throughout his lecture, Araud stressed that Israeli and French relations had recovered since their nadir in 2002 and pointed to ties in culture, science and intelligence gathering.

One audience member questioned why France didn't have any Israeli art or artifacts in its Louvre Museum.

Araud assured her that the museum did have Israeli pieces. "We stole everything," he said with a smile.