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Ad in France against anti-Semitism: "Dirty Jew" over a portrait of Jesus. Anti-Semitism in France prompted a very public spat between the countries' two leaders this summer, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged French Jews to emigrate to Israel.
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| By Associated Press November 24, 2004 |
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Barely two weeks after its VIP treatment for a dying Yasser Arafat, France reached out to Israel on Wednesday, hosting a delegation of Israeli economic officials.
Speeches and roundtables at an all-day seminar with French business leaders were dominated by a heavy sales pitch: Come invest in Israel.
But, on the sidelines, officials and experts underscored another message -- that closer trade ties could ease political tensions between Israel and France aggravated by anti-Semitism and other issues.
"Obviously, if the economic ties are getting stronger and there is more exposure on the economic front ... it will improve the politics also," said Dan Catarivas, the Israeli Finance Ministry's deputy director general of international affairs.
For France to get a greater role in Mideast politics, it needs to overcome a perception among Israelis of having a pro-Palestinian bias, several people interviewed said.
"Maybe economics is a good way to do that," Catarivas told The Associated Press. "Maybe more economic involvement can create a more balanced view and balanced position of France in the Middle East."
It certainly can't hurt, noted Henri Cukierman, president of the French-Israeli Chamber of Commerce.
"It's very important to improve economic ties, because if we don't do that, Israel and France will grow more and more apart," he said.
Anti-Semitism in France prompted a very public spat between the countries' two leaders this summer, when Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged French Jews to emigrate to Israel.
French President Jacques Chirac castigated Sharon and said he would not be welcome in France until he explained his remarks. Sharon then tried to repair the damage by praising France for its efforts to crack down on anti-Jewish acts.
France is the seventh biggest importer of Israeli goods and services, while French exports in recent years amounted to about US$1.3 billion annually.
French Trade Minister Francois Loos told Wednesday's gathering that Paris is doing all it can to "animate this relationship."
"We feel that Israel is a country that is economically interesting to us," Loos told the group of about 200 people, which included Israeli Ambassador to France Nissim Zvili.
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier has also made a priority of reaching out to Israel.
"The time has come to renew our relations," he said in a speech at Tel Aviv University last month. "My ambition as the head of French diplomacy is to multiply the occasions for our societies to get to know each other and understand each other."
Political analysts say France's red-carpet treatment of Arafat _ dispatching a plane to fly the Palestinian leader to a top Paris-area military hospital _ was also a gesture to Israel. Arafat died at the hospital on Nov. 11.
"It certainly made life easier for them," Francois Heisbourg, director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research think-tank, said of France's decision to treat Arafat. "If he had died in Ramallah, people would have said it was because the Israelis didn't let him out."
"I think the Israelis were quite happy that it happened this way," he said.
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