Israel Matzav

Kouchner go home! (UPDATED)

French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner was in Gaza yesterday and made a total jerk of himself. Kouchner told reporters that Israel shouldn't inspect trucks from Gaza because 'not all of them are carrying bombs.' Kouchner reacted with laughter to suggestions that Israel is going through a war. Here's the interview:



And people still wonder why many Israelis cannot take the Europeans seriously as an honest broker?

Kouchner also said yesterday that Israel should reach a cease fire hudna with Hamas, even if it means that Hamas re-arms.

Kouchner said he knew Israel was concerned that Hamas would use any such lull to build up and improve its weaponry. But Israel had "to take a chance..., to take a risk," he said.

Kouchner also said there was no great hurry to thwart Iran's nuclear drive, but that the way to halt it was via the "French strategy" of sanctions on the one hand, and dialogue with Teheran on the other.

The people of Gaza were "living with tremendous suffering," said the minister. Thus the international community had to press "to reopen the gates into Gaza," with the necessary controls.

And get a load of this little tidbit on Kouchner's background:

Kouchner, 68, is the son of a Protestant mother and a Jewish father whose parents were murdered at Auschwitz.

And his mouth continued to spew Gaza sewage:

He was completing a visit in which he called for the establishment of a Palestinian state "as quickly as possible" as a vital Palestinian and Israeli interest, and an end to "the blockade on Gaza."

Just weeks ago, in Washington, Kouchner declared that it was "not the moment" for the West to be talking to Hamas. Asked Thursday whether he was suggesting Israel should now talk to Gaza's Islamist government, he said: "It has been done already. They [the Israelis] are talking. They are not talking directly, apparently, but through Egypt, on [the issue of kidnapped IDF soldier Cpl.] Gilad Schalit. You have to free Gilad Schalit... I don't ask them to talk directly to Hamas. It's up to them."

But he stressed that a cease-fire was an urgent imperative to persuade Palestinians that daily life could change for the better. He knew of Israel's fears that Hamas would exploit any cease-fire.

"It's always the case," he said. But "we have to take a chance..., to take a risk." Israel should use its allies and its friends, the French included, to reach a cease-fire, he said.

I wonder if Kouchner would have proposed that France take a similar risk with Germany in World War II.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:47 AM