If you are under pressure to do something but know that you can't do anything, what do you do? Well, you do nothing but to appear to be doing something. You invoke grand principles and grand sentiments.
This is what French President Emmanuel Macron and his Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot have been doing in a rather quixotic way with regard to the ongoing tragedy in the Gaza Strip.
The French leaders are talking of taking "concrete measures," not realizing that in philosophical parlance, a measure that isn't concrete isn't a measure but a "henid," a concept that dissolves into nothing in contact with reality.
So far, they have talked of three concrete measures.
The first is to study the possibility of recognizing the "Palestinian state" in an unspecified future by convening a conference in New York, in consultation with the Arab League, under the auspices of the United Nations. The state in question must also include Hamas, provided it agrees to abandon violence and transform itself into a regular political party.
The second is to study the possibility of referring some Israeli officials for investigation on charges of violating unspecified humanitarian principles.
The third is to ask the European Union to study the possibility of applying Article II of the Israel-EU trade agreement to curtail commercial exchanges between the two.
If implemented, such a measure could wreck some businesses in Israel and Europe. But what good such virtue-signaling might do for Gazans, who die every day, is not specified.
"We cannot allow our grand principles to be violated," says Barrot.
Invoking grand principles and grand sentiments, one of his predecessors, Dominique de Villepin, the gentleman who tried to prevent the fall of Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein, has come out of retirement to call for prosecuting Israeli political and military leaders in the International Criminal Court.
Wow! Had not the issue at hand been so deadly serious, with people dying every day, one might have dismissed all that as mere persiflage to keep up appearances.
However, the hypocrisy of those grand principles and sentiments is illustrated by the fact that 24 hours after Macron, Barrot and de Villepin invoked them to justify their trompe-l'oeil anti-Israel posture, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau unveiled a 76-page report designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a present and imminent threat to France's national security.
The report, compiled over two years, labels the Muslim Brotherhood as an international organization that promotes extremism and covers terrorist activities across the globe.
Backed by at least two unnamed "foreign powers," in France the Muslim Brotherhood has doubled its membership to 100,000. The tactic it uses is called "permeation", that is to say infiltrating religious, educational, sport, cultural and trade units, and non-governmental organizations, to use millions of people as human shields for its activities.
Retailleau's detailed and well-sourced report does not mention that Hamas, as a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, is also using the people of Gaza as human shields.
Barrot says, "If you sow violence, you reap violence!" He forgets that the current violence was first sown by Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israeli towns and villages.
Nor would his forlorn hope of Hamas disarming itself and becoming a regular political party to participate in a putative Palestinian state with as yet undefined contours do anything for the people of Gaza held hostage by a few thousand gunmen.
De Villepin and his ilk see Hamas as a "liberation movement" that cannot be eliminated. Yet, Hamas has never dubbed itself such. It sees itself as part of the Muslim Brotherhood, with global ambitions, and has deliberately kept the very word "Palestine" out of its identity. It doesn't want to "liberate" Palestine, however defined; its stated goal is to wipe Israel off the map.
I am not sure Hamas leaders would be happy to see their true identity thus ignored.
Even then, the claim that armed "liberation" or "resistance" groups can never be defeated isn't always true.
The Malay Liberation Front was completely wiped out. The Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG) ended up in the dustbin of history, as did the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Shining Path and 19th of April Movement (M19) in Latin America and half a dozen groups supposedly fighting to "liberate Palestine."
No one can deny France's right to take sides in this tragic conflict. But there are two things that cannot be accepted.
The first is to hide or redefine the identity of the side you take. The second in this particular case is to use explicit or implicit sympathy for Hamas as a cover for a crackdown on real or imagined "threatening" outfits in France itself.
Equating Hamas with Palestine is a betrayal of the Palestinian people, including many, perhaps a majority, who may have no sympathy for the use of wanton violence in the service of legitimate national aspirations.
The French leaders only state what they want Israel to do; never what Hamas should do. They forget that Hamas could instantly end this war by releasing all remaining hostages and surrendering its arms. Even implicit support for Hamas, by bashing Israel and its leaders, might encourage what is left of the group's leadership to prolong the conflict and produce more victims.
Tehran's daily Kayhan, reflecting the views of Iranian "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenei, urges Hamas to continue the war because although it has lost territory, not to mention tens of thousands of lives in Gaza, it has "won in American and European universities and world public opinion."
This is a war and, like any war, is aimed at designating a victor and a vanquished. To prevent it from doing that achieves nothing but paving the way for bigger and deadlier future wars.
France's diplomatic gesticulations about grand principles and sentiments reminds one of the song by the great French singer and songwriter Guy Béart:
"She goes to the Louvre Museum with Philippe
In virtue of grand principles
Then goes frolicking with Armand
In virtue of grand sentiments!"
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
