Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair, lashed out at the French president after he said Paris planned to recognise a Palestinian state in June.
“Screw you!” Yair Netanyahu wrote on X on Saturday night, responding to a post by Emmanuel Macron in which he had endorsed a “Palestinian state without Hamas” and “the pursuit of a political two-state solution”.
“I support the legitimate right of Palestinians to a state and to peace, just as I support the right of Israelis to live in peace and security, both recognized by their neighbors,” Macron had written on X.
Following the crude insult, Yair Netanyahu’s post continued: “Yes to independence of New Caledonia! Yes to independence to French Polynesia! Yes to independence of Corsica! Yes to independence of the Basque Country! Yes to independence of French Guinea!”
It appeared that Yair Netanyahu may have confused Guinea, a country in West Africa, and French Guiana, an overseas department of France on South America’s northeast coast. Guinea has been an independent nation since 1958.
The exchange followed Macron’s announcement that Paris intended to recognise a Palestinian state in June.
He told a French television station last week: “Our goal is, sometime in June, to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia where we could finalise the movement of reciprocal recognition,” he said.
“I will do it … because I think that at some point it will be fair and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not,” he continued.
France will chair a two-day UN conference with Saudi Arabia in New York in June focused on a two-state solution after 18 months of the Israel-Hamas war.
Benjamin Netanyahu also weighed in following his son’s remarks, in a comment that rejected his language, saying “the style of his response … is unacceptable to me” while echoing his son’s comments about French overseas departments – and “French Guinea”.
“President Macron is gravely mistaken when he continues to promote the idea of a Palestinian state in the heart of our country, whose sole ambition is the destruction of the State of Israel,” the Israel Prime Minister wrote in Hebrew on X, adding that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority have condemned the Hamas militants’ 7 October attacks.
“We will not jeopardise our existence because of illusions disconnected from reality, and we will not accept moral sermons for the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger the existence of Israel, from those who oppose granting independence to Corsica, New Caledonia, French Guinea, and other territories, whose independence would not endanger France in any way,” the Israeli prime minister added.
The Israel-Hamas war started on 7 October 2023, when Hamas militants killed 1,200 people during the attack on southern Israel and took 251 captive. Some have since been freed in ceasefire agreements and other deals. Fifty-nine remain in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be still alive.
