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September 5, 2003/Elul 8 5763, Vol. 55, No. 54
French envoy gets off on wrong foot
PHILIP CARMEL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
PARIS - France's new ambassador has yet to arrive in Tel Aviv, but already he has succeeded in antag-onizing Israel's political establishment and France's Jewish community.
Gerard Araud was sharing his views on his new posting with Foreign Ministry colleagues last week over crudites and cocktails when he failed to notice an Israeli journalist carefully jotting down his reflections on the Middle East.
Waiting patiently for the ambassador to finish his musings, the journalist, Boaz Bismuth, politely introduced himself as the Paris correspondent for the Israeli daily Yediot Achronot, before asking Araud why he had repeatedly referred to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as "a thug" and described Israel as "a paranoid country."
"But you don't intend to publish that," Araud re-portedly said, as reported by Bismuth in Yediot on Aug. 31.
The comments surprised many of Israel's supporters in France because Araud, unlike many of his predecessors, was considered friendly toward Israel and apparently had been handpicked by Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin with the aim of improving relations between Paris and Jerusalem.
Moreover, the posting wasn't Araud's first mission in Tel Aviv: The diplomat began his career as a secretary in the embassy, where he was remembered fondly by his Israeli counterparts.
Once the remarks hit the Israeli media, French authorities sought to limit the damage.
"Gerard Araud denies in the most formal manner the collection of remarks attributed to him by an Israeli journalist regarding the State of Israel and its prime minister," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The cool formality of the denial, to say nothing of the lack of apology, failed to satisfy many, including Israeli Education Minister Limor Livnat, who demanded that Israel refuse to accept Araud's credentials.
A similar response came from Michel Darmon, president of the France-Israel Association, who said Araud's comments are "very serious, insulting and undignified for an ambassador, particularly one who is going to Israel."
Bismuth acknowledged that he might have overstepped the mark by quoting a private conversation, though he still felt obligated to report it due to the severity of the remarks.
"What do they expect when they invite journalists to cocktails?" Bismuth told JTA.
On the other hand, Israel's Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Paris were keen to play down the affair. Israeli diplomatic circles in Paris hinted to JTA that the matter could be rectified by a quiet apology.
France's Jewish community was less eager to let the incident pass, with the vice president of the Paris Consistoire, Samy Gozlan, writing to the Foreign Ministry asking that Araud be disciplined.
The revelations come during a difficult period in Franco-Israeli relations, with Paris seen as the major stumbling block in Israeli and U.S. attempts to persuade the European Union to widen its ban on the military wing of Hamas to include the group's political arm.
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