Netanyahu decries Macron’s ‘grotesque’ claim that Hamas ‘never operated’ in West Bank

Israel shot back angrily Tuesday at French President Emmanuel Macron who criticized Israeli actions in the West Bank by claiming Hamas was never active in the territory that is home to the Palestinian Authority.

“The grotesque absurdity of Emmanuel Macron’s statement is staggering,” said a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to deliver a defiant address to the world body on Thursday.

“Hamas terrorists carry out attacks against Jews almost every day. They have murdered countless Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria,” it said, using the Biblical name for the West Bank, which Israel seized in 1967. “Ignorance is no excuse for erasing their blood.”

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Netanyahu’s office pointed to the deadly terror shooting in the West Bank on Sunday, the eve of Judaism’s holiest day of Yom Kippur. Israel said that the victim, father of six Netanel Shukrun, also had French citizenship.

Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s main challenger in next month’s Knesset elections, joined the premier in condemning Macron, calling the French president’s remark “extremely divorced from the reality on the ground.”

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“As someone who commanded the Judea and Samaria Division and as someone who fought to defeat Hamas terrorism, I am very familiar with the terror organization’s operations in Judea and Samaria and the threat it poses to Israeli citizens,” Eisenkot wrote on X. “The fight against terror is not up for negotiation, and we will not accept international hypocrisy at the expense of Israeli citizens’ security.”

Macron in his speech to the United Nations deplored the humanitarian situation in Gaza — from which Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, in the deadliest ever attack against in the Jewish state’s history. He also decried Israel’s actions in the West Bank, where Palestinian attacks as well as settler violence have soared since the Hamas-led atrocities that triggered the Gaza war.

“A year ago, here in this very hall, about a dozen states had recognized Palestine. I hear the cynicism of some people: ‘Recognition is just a piece of paper, look at the reality,'” Macron said, banging his fist on the podium in his last speech at the United Nations before stepping down next May.

“But what credibility do we have if we continue to remain inactive in the face of Gaza? Some boast of a supposed peace. But that peace has not reopened humanitarian access for a single second. Are we simply to stand by and watch this spectacle that should shame us all?”

“Look at what is happening in the West Bank, where every day violations are committed. In whose name? Hamas has never operated in the West Bank,” Macron continued.

“What is happening there is building, day by day, the impossibility of a project that should be based on respect for the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to exist.”

Responding to the Israeli criticism, a French diplomatic official told The Times of Israel that Macron “meant to say that Hamas does not govern the West Bank.”

“His remarks should therefore not be misrepresented,” the French official added.

While Hamas does not rule the West Bank, it has long had a presence there and has carried out attacks in the area against Israelis. The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, led by Hamas’s rivals, has semi-autonomy in major urban areas of the West Bank, with Israel controlling most of the territory. Hamas bloodily ejected the PA from Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel pulled out and dismantled settlements.

Netanyahu has poor relations with Macron, who led the push by Western nations at last year’s UN General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state.

France recently joined Britain in imposing sanctions on products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, again angering Israel.

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham defended those sanctions during his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, while calling the October 7 terror onslaught “utterly horrific” and saying Britain condemns Hamas and Iranian threats.

“But this does not justify the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza or the West Bank,” he said. “We will not stand by as the horrific suffering continues to grow and the prospect of a two-state solution… comes under attack.”

Burnham slammed Israel for issuing tenders for the controversial E1 settlement project near Jerusalem, which he said would “threaten to put a viable Palestinian state beyond reach.”

“We live in an age of low trust in politics. If we were to continue to talk about the two-state solution, but fail to back those words with deeds, that trust will fall even lower and our enemies will seek to exploit the alienation that follows from that. We won’t let it happen,” he added.

The remarks came hours after Burnham met with US President Donald Trump, who claimed that he was unfamiliar with the British decision to outlaw trade with settlements.

“I don’t know about the [decision]. Do you know about the [decision]?” Trump asked Burnham during a bilateral meeting on the UN General Assembly sidelines.

But Trump was actually briefed by Burnham before London’s announcement of the sanctions regime targeting Israeli settlements but refrained from pushing back on the initiative, a Western official told The Times of Israel earlier this month.

Asked about the ban two weeks ago, Trump said he planned to speak to Israel and other countries to understand why it was made “all of a sudden.”

While US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has separately clarified that the US will not be joining other Western countries in sanctioning Israeli settlements, Washington has quite notably avoided condemning the move, which infuriated Jerusalem.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

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