Sarkozy to Netanyahu: Fire Your Foreign Minister
The Israeli press was abuzz on Tuesday after a Monday night TV report stating that, in their meeting in Paris last week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy had told Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to “get rid of” Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
Although the French leader’s faux pas stunned Israel, it wasn’t his first aimed at leaders of democracies. Sarkozy has unleashed a mass of insults towards Western leaders that are way outside normal diplomatic protocol, while at the same time showing high regard and cutting sweet deals with some of the Middle East’s cruelest dictators.
In this latest contretemps, Israel’s Channel 2 news claimed Sarkozy had professed himself unable to meet with Lieberman, and had further told Netanyahu to replace him with Tzipi Livni, the previous foreign minister, whom he called a better choice: “With her and [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak,” Sarkozy reportedly said, “you can make history.”
Netanyahu reportedly replied that Lieberman made a better impression privately than in public, to which Sarkozy answered that French far-right leader and Holocaust-denier Jean-Marie Le Pen was also a nice person in private. When Netanyahu objected that Lieberman was not Le Pen and the two shouldn’t be compared, Sarkozy reportedly agreed that it was an unfair comparison.
On Tuesday morning Yediot Aharonot, Israel’s largest daily, reported this statement by Netanyahu’s office: “The prime minister does not refer to the contents of the talks he conducts, and Prime Minister Netanyahu expresses great esteem for the foreign minister” — a tepid nondenial of Sarkozy’s offensive remarks if there ever was one.
Lieberman’s own Foreign Ministry was understandably a good deal less diplomatic, blasting Sarkozy for his “intolerable intervention in internal Israeli affairs” and stating that “if the words attributed to the French president are correct, then the intervention of the president of a respected, democratic state in the affairs of another democratic state is grave and unacceptable. We expect that — regardless of political affiliation — all political bodies in Israel condemn this callous intervention of a foreign state in our internal affairs.”
The Foreign Ministry also expressed its awareness that it wasn’t, indeed, the first time Sarkozy had denigrated a democratic leader. As reported in the French daily Liberaćion, Sarkozy had previously said U.S. President Barack Obama “does not meet standards of decision-making and effectiveness” and that Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero is “not intelligent enough.” The Zapatero remark (but not the Obama one) was later denied by Sarkozy’s office. Somewhat earlier, Sarkozy had also harshly criticized German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Being in such company, however, didn’t placate former Israeli Ambassador to Paris Yehuda Lankry, who called Sarkozy’s statements “inappropriate” and “unacceptable” and noted that — whatever Lieberman’s reputation as a “hawk” and “hardliner” — since becoming foreign minister he has upheld Netanyahu’s support for the road map and his later, explicitly expressed support for a Palestinian state. Supposedly, these are the positions that the international community, emphatically including Europe, demands of Israeli officials.
Emmanuel Navon, an Israeli lecturer in diplomatic studies, gave some background:
From the first day Lieberman was appointed foreign minister, a scathing campaign bordering on hysteria has been taking place against Lieberman in the French media. I believe it is possible that the French media and Sarkozy himself, who personally knew … Livni, had hoped that she would form the government, or would at least join the coalition together with Netanyahu if she could not be prime minister.
With all due respect, [Lieberman] did not blow up a plane over Scotland. What we are seeing here are double standards. [Libyan leader Muammar] Gaddafi, with his record as a terrorist responsible for one of the most terrible terror attacks at the end of the 1980s, can be accepted. So what? Is Lieberman worse?
Navon, in citing Sarkozy’s strange double standards, had an excellent point.
Sarkozy assumed office as president in May 2007, and by July 25 of that year — one day after Libya’s release of five falsely charged Bulgarian nurses — Sarkozy was already meeting Gaddafi in Tripoli to sign agreements on a host of issues. Sarkozy immediately “faced a barrage of [international] criticism … for agreeing to build a nuclear reactor in Libya” — seen as heavy and dangerous compensation for the nurses’ release.
But on December 10 Sarkozy was as it again, meeting the Libyan leader in Paris for a ceremony in honor of a number of French-Libyan cooperation accords including the military and nuclear fields. Even in France itself, not noted for idealism in foreign affairs, the meeting drew sharp criticism. A Socialist leader said Sarkozy had invited “a head of state who justifies international terrorism,” a centrist politician called the visit “shocking,” and even Sarkozy’s own junior minister for human rights said, “Col. Gaddafi must understand that our country is not a doormat on which a leader — whether terrorist or not — can wipe off the blood of his crimes.”
Gaddafi, for his part, showed his bona fides as an honored guest by pitching a heated, Bedouin-style tent next to the Elysée Palace for his sojourn, reportedly causing Sarkozy “embarrassment.”
Sarkozy has also worked hard to rehabilitate, sanitize, and strengthen Syrian dictator and terrorist enabler Bashar Assad, also believed to be behind the string of assassinations of Rafiq Hariri and other Lebanese nationalists since 2005.
Sarkozy was continuing a personal tradition in targeting the Israeli foreign minister with his ill-mannered words to Netanyahu — a tradition whose obverse is his cozying up to some of the world’s most egregious barbarians.
ben en voilà une diatribe
Well Sarko is Sarko, between provocation and manipulation
now according to his taste for beautiful women, I’m not surprised that he said he preferred the pvious Israeli foreign minister
About his adventure with Kadhafi, sure, he underestimate the desert fox skills for cheating, though the travel that Sarko made there was after Blair’s, after Condi’s ones that also proposed their own goodies to the “new born” good alliee after that he paid all the fees for the Lockerbee crash to the american families, umm while for the Tenere’s, the french families got the left dusts, I recall that Lockerbee was an iranian terrorist act though, but Tenere an authentic lybian attack, cuz the French dared to bomb an illegal lybian airport in north of Chad
Oh, I forgot, the Germans were not happy for the nuclear reactor proposition too, y’a know they were already there to sell their “alternative energies”, too bad, Kadhafi doesn’t care of t’em, uh, he’s got enough oil and gaz reserves.
Now, I would advise you to laugh at what Sarko said about Lieberman, so did the Spanish government leader, cuz he knows how Sarko is kidding, too bad the MSM don’t
Marie, his taste for beautiful women doesn’t explain his hanging out with Kadhafi, unless you know something the rest of us don’t…
“Sarko” = pepe lepew?
Hey, Marie, I wish Sarkozy was just funny. He’s deadly serious when he goes after Assad and treats him like an exalted man of honor. Wish we could laugh.
Hmm… So, the real story here is that Sarko is turning into a Chiraq re-tread by cozying up to terrorism-enabling third-world dictators while aggressively dismissing democratic allies. I am just waiting for a 1970s vintage pic from Osirak with Nico’s face in the background behind Jacques and Saddam.
Mr. Hornik, you buried the lede here.
I agree with you, Sarko is a renegat, Chirac wouldn’t have gone to Lybia, cuz it’s the private anglo-saxon hunting domain LMAO, and who cares of the idiot bulgarian nurses that went to gain more dirty money from a demonised regime.
Though bloody bling bling Sarko needed to make the event, just for proving to the old chiraquie and to the Eurocratie guards that he was more effective than t’em. Yeah, and his former beautiful wife was friend with one of Kadhafi’s jetsetter sons, plus Sarko had some difficulties to keep her busy at home, so he proposed her that diplomatic mission, “go get the nurses from this fox den custoody ; this became a successful entreprise of mediatisation, with moult salamalekoum salads, this was his entry on the world political stage, and that that the others understoud like he would from now to play the selfish media star whenever he would have the opportunity.
Now, Sarko, while he doesn’t disdain the spot-lights, is also a man that has many files in head, that he can transform into successes or miscarriages and or defeats, but he doesn’t remain obsessed by them, if something doesn’t work, he step onto something else, or to another file (something usual for a former advocate)
Things are so nowadays with the new generation of politicians, Blair inaugurated the “bling bling” behaviour,and Sarko is of the same vein, that is/will be pursued by your O… it’s so, we have to understand that they only are in representation, that the words they pronounce are written in their script, sometimes he disgresses l(ike here), he makes some personal appreciations, but they will not be kept for the final set, power doesn’t belong to the governments anymore, just figuration
2-Wancow, he isn’t alone that courts in these aeras, each nation that have something to sell or to buy does it too, though whenever France steps in what is usely seen as an english traditional market, brits medias never miss to report it in their manner, therefore not positive for us.
4-Joel, Sarko is just following the new official policy of Washington, what about the new US embassador there ? would you think he would do sumthin there without the pentagon consentment ? aber Nein ! besides during Bush administration backyards discussion were on with Assad, Germans were often the intermediary.
5-CR, check how many Lybians live in the US, and how many in France ?
you’re the country that remove Kadhafi from the terrorism listing !!!!!!!
Oh I forgot Lee
Well, Sarkozy is kinda’ right… about Obama, I mean. But otherwise Sarko’s remarks are patently stupid. We expected better. Perhaps he’s just working to keep his Mediterranean strategy going, and that means keeping his Arab partners happy. Or maybe he’s just the fool we think he is.
8-raymond mediterranean strategy, where you aren’t ? aw com’on !!!
Then there is this:
Rosner’s Domain: Sarkozy’s big mouth is a double-edged sword
Posted by SHMUEL ROSNER
Comments: 19
While Israel is right to be outraged by French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s recent comments (“You need to get rid of this man,” he reportedly said to PM Netanyahu, referring to FM Avigdor Lieberman) – it is worth noting that Sarkozy’s big-mouthing was not always seen in Jerusalem as such nuisance.
In fact, not long ago, I heard Israeli government officials making use of Sarkozy’s no-less outrageous comments, to demonstrate that Israel’s frustrations with US’ President Barack Obama are shared by other world leaders.
It was just 2-3 months ago, when the press reported that the French President bad mouthed a score of world leaders, Obama included:
Sarkozy had delivered some astonishingly unflattering comments about several foreign officials – including American President Barack Obama. During a lunch with a group of French legislators Wednesday, Sarkozy reportedly described Obama as inexperienced, ill-prepared by advisers, and thus far “not always up to standard on decision-making and efficiency.” And those turned out to be relatively kind words. Sarkozy said German Chancellor Angela Merkel had been reluctantly forced by economic realities to copy his own policies for dealing with the recession. Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, said the French President, was simply “not very clever.”
This wasn’t the first time in which Israelis were using Sarkozy’s criticism of Obama’s on Iran by way of warning against his “engagement” policy. Even before Obama was elected, Israeli officials were leaking similar reports:
[A]ccording to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and comprised of “formulations empty of all content.”
My point:
1. Sarkozy should be condemned for his comments.
2. But don’t get over-excitedly outraged – Sarkozy is Israel’s friend, not an enemy.
3. And we once used to love him for being honest about other things.
4. Lieberman should be pleased: he just joined a very long line of established and respected world leaders offended by the Frenchman (Obama, Merkel, Zapatero).
5. Count the seconds: It will not take long for Israeli opposition speakers to defend Sarkozy’s remarks – arguing that he was actually right to say what he said.
Mr. Netanyahu: Pay no attention to France. A long time ago a brave group of men and women comprising the French resistance fought and died against Hitler. In France today most of the adults walk around in diapers.
Gee, why would he say that about Lieberman? Is it just barely possible Lieberman deserves all the scorn he gets?
Marie Claude
It looks like Sarko is far away from the glory of Napoleon and Joan of Arc. Instead, he’s more like the jolly talking candle “Lumiere” in Disney’s amazingly accurate animated adapation of “Beauty and the Beast”. Their face look EXACTLY the same. But instead of singing “Be my guest!” he sings “Fire your foreign Minister!”
Obama is the handsome yet villanous “Gaston”. Boy, that Gaston could really sing.
Sarkozy didn’t say anything that the attorney-general, a civil servant, didn’t already say. He’s going to indict Lieberman one of these days for enriching himself in unkosher ways. In Israel unlike Britain where half the members of Parliament are thieves but no one gets sent to jail, crooks are put on trial. Just last week a former finance minister got five and a half years and a former labor minister got four years, from different parties in unrelated plunderings. Even Ariel Sharon, the great leader, only avoided jail because he structured matters in such a way that the trail ended with his oldest son, who went from being one of the most powerful men in the country to just another convict. And of course Olmert was forced out as PM and his trial will be coming up in due course.
Sarkosky and the rest of the effete western Europeans might be taken seriously if they would actually do something except prattle when it comes to helping Israel deal with its most serious problem, the Iranian nukes. Lieberman, a Russian by origin, has been able to move the ball a few yards in getting the Russians to listen to Israel’s concerns. It seems that Russia is going to buy some of Israel’s high-tech drones (on condition they don’t pass on the technology to the Arabs) and in return go slow in equipping Iran with a new air defence system. Peres, the president, was in Kazakhstan this week and got a promise from them not to allow shipment of nuke materials across their country although the scene seemed to be something out of Borat and the promise equally as credible.
Lee, he is like de Funes in ‘la folie des grandeurs’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QySixLmPFmA
Sarkozy is “manipulating” the opinion, this is how he pushes his argumentation ahead, it looks like he is fooling or derailing, in reality, he is scoring
like for the Burka thing, he threw back the stone in to Obama’s garden
I think that Israel should tell Sarkozy to mind his own business and fire that bad of hot air named Kouchner.
However let’s remind to some people that Sarkozy is by the standards of Frecnh Republic a big friend of Israel and America, that he must count with dozens of politicians, hundreds of civil servants and a public opinion brainwashed by decades of gaullist and paneuropeist propaganda.
Also that it is not France but America who has elected a president who bows in front of the Saudi “king”.
proof that Sarko isn’t that “stoopid”
“Je ne me regarde pas agir. J’agis. Je ne suis pas narcissique, je ne vais pas commenter ma propre action”
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/politique/20090701.OBS2703/nicolas_sarkozy__jai_commis_des_erreurs.html
I agree, Sarko should fire Kouchner, dunno what he find in him, may-be cuz can swallow grass snakes, or his wife Christine Ockrent is nice looking too
I would have preferred Hubert Vedrine, who was his first choice as a wise man, but apparently HB was too exigent, it was said that he wanted to supervise the EU affairs too
tiens, tiens, Israel was telling to Sarkozy not to take Hubert Vedrine as a minister for the foreign affairs, seems that Sarko complied
It’s funny though I read that Israelians prefer Mitterand to de Gaulle, and Hubert Vedrine was his mentor
http://www.dailymotion.com/related/x8om6z/video/x1za0t_sarko-israel-kouchner-vs-vedrine_news?hmz=746162
“hundreds of civil servants and a public opinion brainwashed by decades of gaullist and paneuropeist propaganda”
bof ! we are not living in America, and therefore not brainwashed by the anti-gaullists LMAO
“you’re the country that remove Kadhafi from the terrorism listing”
Because Muammar, nearly $#!++ing himself in the wake of our overrunning Saddam’s perimiter, gave up his nukes and seriously modified his behavior. Sensing our weakness in the past couple of years, however, he has reverted to his true nature. As usual, good behavior in much of the world only comes at the point of a gun.
And La République Fwançaise, in accordance with its true nature, is enabling Muammar’s regression through its own active collaboration. Just like in generations past (see Vichy, Chiraq, etc.) Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
ah CR, yeah, Kadhafi remove his nukes , but Condi Nice and Blair were negociating arms sales with him
la Republique française te dit merde, cuz, if we had only collaborated you wouldn’t be here to lecture us, connard !
The guys wearing black hood scared me, Marie Claude.
Lee, me too, I wouldn’t like to live around, or with a stafford terrier and a rifle ; it’s really time that our governants acknoledge these non-droit quaters, Le Pen’s daughter is gaining some voices, seems that her party is on the way to handle a nord city
Fire Your Own Ministers, Sarkozy!
EU/US Bullies Act as if they own little Israel.
Sarkozy adores Livni and Barak because these traitors are willing to sell out Israel to barbaric, implacable enemies bent on Jewish genocide.
It breaks international law to negotiate and make agreements with PA/PLO Muslim terrorists!
The Free World is in a fight for her survival! NEVER surrender to the global jihad onslaught! Not one inch of the Free World to the enemy!
NEVER agree to vicious and evil ethnic Jew cleansing!
PA Muslims CELEBRATE Murder of 3,000 Innocents 9/11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrM0dAFsZ8k
Sarkozy is a bit schizophrenic, isn’t he? On the one hand, he proposes banning burqas and niqabs. On the other, he called Arabic, of all things, the “language of the future, of science and of modernity”; when, in fact, Arabic is the language of seventh-century bedouin barbarism, rejection of science, backwardness, misogyny, islamic supremacism, bigotry, ignorance, Arab racism, economic and intellectual paralysis, violence, anti-semitism and everything else which is part of the mohammedan package of “blessings.”
Emmanuel Navon’s point shows yet another example of the little man’s schizophrenia or plain moral confusion.
proud_kafir, aren’t mixing your president’s words there, I’m surprised that Sarko made such a pangeric , if he did, that’s mere flattery
panegyric
what Sarkozy deserves is a phillipic
Well, Marie Claude, he did, and that was before Barack Arafat Saddam Hussein Osama was elected… A Google search for those infamous words and Sarkozy will produce a bunch of results that attest it.
Whether or not it was flattery, that’s the kind of stuff that no Westerner concerned about their civilization’s survival should ever say, since it gives backing to those bedouins’ fictitious self-image of superiority; just as surrender speeches like Obama’s at al-Azhar “University”, as Wafa Sultan brilliantly put it, was not only full of fallacies and lies; but it was certainly something that has confirmed, in the Arabs’ opinion, their insane and baseless conspiracy theories concocted to explain away the failures of their own societies, for which islam is mostly (if not solely) to blame.
Proud_Kafir7908,
Yes if you make the research in english, but in french you have the context why he said that “1ères Assises de l’enseignement de la langue et de la culture arabes, ouvertes à l’Assemblée nationale française”
but you’re right times are changing, 3 decades ago, no president would have said that but that imigrants have to learn french
an accurate comment of a blog that treat the subject :
“c’est marrant, les immigrés italiens et polonais d’il y a 80ans, c’était plutôt « apprenez le français et fermez vos gueules»
“it’s funny, the italian and polish immigrates 80 years ago, it was rather “learn french and STFU”
Now about the arab language, in a few high schools you can learn arab,
each university that has a reputation has an arab degree
It’s a bit to fulfill the requests of the 2nd and 3rd generation of our Maghrebins, but also for the French that want to get an “import-export” situation, for arab countries represent a big open businesses aera.
Though, it never was ment for us, as french citizen, to learn arab.
I like what Ann Coulter said about the French: “The French have tanks with one speed forward and five speeds in reverse”.
oldguy, be sure that your Ann knows all about speed of tanks, but political moors where she is a happy frog LMAO
32. Oldguy:”The French have tanks with one speed forward and five speeds in reverse”.
Actually, it’s Egyptian tanks that have the backwards gearbox.
Oldguy said
“The French have tanks with one speed forward and five speeds in reverse”.
That is because once they have run over ennemy soldiers, the French looove doing it again. At least five times