(Jerusalem Post) Herb Keinon - Former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, the no. 2 in the opposition Socialist Party and a longtime staunch Palestinian advocate, wrote a praiseworthy article of Israel last week in the left-wing, traditionally pro-Palestinian weekly Le Nouvelle Observateur. The spokesman at Israel's embassy in Paris sent excerpts of the article back to the Foreign Ministry Sunday as an example of a "revision" taking place in France regarding Israel and Prime Minister Sharon. The article, which deviated greatly from the traditional French Left line on Israel, said that French Socialists had not understood the complexity of the conflict. Fabius wrote that his camp's sympathy and solidarity had been reflexively with the Palestinians, "as if the suffering and despair were not evenly divided between the two sides." Fabius said that the Socialist camp should support the Israeli people. The article appeared during a week when Syria largely replaced Israel, at least for the time being, as the Middle East's "bad boy" in the French press.
2005-03-11 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive