Israel-Hamas war: Emmanuel Macron’s visit does not make the headlines in the Israeli press

Tuesday October 24, two weeks after the unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel, Emmanuel Macron went to Israel to express his solidarity with the Israeli people and their leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. But in the Israeli press, the visit of the tenant of the Élysée does not excite. On the website of the national daily Haaretz, no mention of his arrival except in the daily live, which followed the different stages of his visit.

While Emmanuel Macron's proposal to mobilize an "international coalition" against Hamas, like that deployed against Daesh in Iraq and Syria, has been discussed at length in France, and criticized, this is hardly the case in the Israeli press which limited itself to briefly mentioning this French proposal. On the Israeli site YnetNews, the most popular in the country, we can find a single article, purely factual, evoking the presidential visit: “Macron on solidarity visit to Israel and calls for an “international coalition against terrorism””, can -we read there. Same observation for WallaNews, a website owned by the Jerusalem Post, and the Times of Israel, which headlined their brief articles - often simple dispatches from AFP - on Emmanuel Macron's support for Israel against Hamas and his idea of coalition.

On Israel Yahom, the first Israeli newspaper, where we find several opinion columns, no mention of the visit of the French president, a historic ally for more than 70 years. On the front page, however, we can read an analysis of Joe Biden's policy towards Israel.

Another example on the YnetNews site, in the international section “News from the Middle East and the world”, China, Iran and the United States are mentioned, but France is not. Tuesday and Wednesday, the controversy surrounding the declarations of the UN Secretary General on "the violation of humanitarian law" by Israel or the remarks of Turkish President Erdogan on Hamas, "a group of liberators who protect their lands", were widely debated. the spotlight to the French president.

The very light coverage of Macron's visit in the Israeli press is all the more striking given that "France shares strong historical, cultural and human ties with Israel", as the Quai d'Orsay indicated in a document published in October 2022. In fact, France was one of the first countries to recognize the new State and to establish diplomatic relations with it, through President Vincent Auriol, in 1949. For more than 70 years, “she defends Israel's right to exist and live in security and its full membership in the community of sovereign nations. Despite this rich heritage, the visit of the head of state does not seem to have made an impression on the minds of the Israelis.