“Don’t touch me, don’t touch me,” a man in a white polo shirt repeats over and over in French, in a video broadcast on X by Sami Boukhelifa, correspondent for RFI in the Middle East. The man speaks to Israeli police officers, who respond in Hebrew before asking him to speak in English. He renews his request: «don’t touch me». The officers tell him that they are not touching him and that he must come with them. The man they are talking to is none other than a French gendarme. The Israeli police officers put him on the ground before forcibly taking him away with another of his colleagues. The scene took place this Thursday, November 7, on a site managed by France in Jerusalem: the Eléona, the same day of the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot. The two staff of the French consulate general were finally released.
In what context did the incident occur?
The event occurred this Thursday, November 7, while Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot was visiting Israel. After meeting with the families of French hostages this morning, with his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz as well as with the Minister of Strategic Affairs of the Jewish state Ron Dermer, he was expected at the summit of the Mount of Olives, at the 'Eléona. The French minister was to meet the communities of the White Fathers and the Carmelites, Catholic religious orders, to discuss the issue of work on the estate and participate in the harvest of the olives that grow on the site. After the gendarmes' arrests, he refused to go to Eléona. “I'm not going in […] today, because the Israeli security forces entered there in an armed manner, without first obtaining authorization from France and without agreeing to leave. However, Eleona is a national domain belonging to France.
What is Eleona?
East of Jerusalem stands the Mount of Olives: an important place of worship for the three Abrahamic religions. At its summit is the Eléona site, which includes the Pater cave. Legend has it that Jesus Christ took refuge there to teach “our father” to the disciples. The place is then a pilgrimage site for Catholics and is also nicknamed Church of the Pater Noster. The site has been heavily damaged over the centuries. In the 19th century, Princess Héloïse de la Tour d'Auvergne left for Jerusalem and acquired hectares of land on the Mount of Olives. She built a cloister there and donated the site to France in 1868. Today, four estates belong to France in Israel, and their “integrity” must be “respected” insisted Jean-Noël Barrot.
Is this the first diplomatic incident of its kind between France and Israel?
French authorities have already experienced heated confrontations in Israel. The best-known incident remains that of 1996, when President Jacques Chirac lost his temper against Israeli soldiers who surrounded him too closely by throwing «do you want me to go back to my plane ?». In his strong French accent, he asked the Israeli officers if they wanted “let him get back on board his plane.” He ended up demanding that the soldiers leave the Basilica of Saint Anne, another French property.
In January 2020, Emmanuel Macron lost his temper in the same place, in Sainte-Anne, when he had just been pushed. He told an Israeli police officer in English: «I don’t like what you did in front of me», that's to say “I don’t like what you did in front of me.”
What future for Franco-Israeli relations?
For the moment, no certainty for the future. However, Jean-Noël Barrot is already denouncing this diplomatic incident which he describes as“unacceptable”. He emphasizes that “this attack on the integrity of an area placed under the responsibility of France is likely to weaken ties” that he was “came to farm with Israel, at a time when we all need to move the region forward on the path to peace.” LThe Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured in a press release that “the procedures were clarified in advance during preparatory discussions with the French Embassy in Israel”.
