Yesterday’s Jerusalem Post headlines were screaming bloody murder against the French president Emanuel Macron. ‘Shame on them!’: PM Netanyahu slams Macron’s call for arms embargo on Israel”, screamed one headline. “The assault on Judaism, France takes the lead”. Screamed another.

In the latter there is an interesting paragraph:

“Perhaps it is time for France to accept responsibility for the murder of its Jews and, for its own sake, pay compensation to its Jewish victims, just as Germany does. Perhaps if France pays for its role in the 20th Century assault on Judaism, it would be less enthusiastic about taking a leading role in the 21st Century assault on Judaism.”

“Assault on Judaism”?! “Pay compensation for Jewish victims”?! France is harvesting what it sowed when it accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance IHRA’s definition of Antisemitism and when it promoted “Israel as the State of the Jewish people” and equated the criticism of Israel with antisemitism, to name a few.

Like a boomerang thrown by a novice, every action taken by France in support of such positions is circling back and hitting that country where it hurts.

Although the IHRA definition seems benign, its guiding examples include: “Claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor”, or “Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” (Please refer to IHRA website.)

Macron’s call for arms embargo against Israel is therefore translated as “denying the Jewish people their right to self-defense”, an “attack on Judaism itself”, and a “promotion of a new Holocaust”! Israel’s response was so harsh because it needed to set an example via Macron and France: back off on cutting our arms supply or else. And, should France and Macron not understand this, the threat is obvious: “We shall make you pay compensation for the Jews killed in France during WWII in the same way that Germany has been paying.”

Is Israel really worried about its weapons of mass destruction being cut off? No, of course not. These are coming from the USA, and as Professor John Mearsheimer keeps reminding us, “Israel and the USA are joined at the hip”.

Is this call by France a late awakening of its conscience because of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and Lebanon? Not really. The Americans have been elbowing the French out of the Middle East, and there seems to be a final kick in the works vis-à-vis oil exploration in the Mediterranean, hence the French outcry.

For France, it is too little too late, and for the rest of the world, Israel’s message is: watch and learn.