Emmanuel Macron was keen to affirm his heartfelt solidarity with Israel, from the start of his trip to the Jewish state and the Palestinian territories on Tuesday, October 24. But the French president surpassed the expectations of his Israeli counterparts, surprising them with a proposal to involve the international coalition against the Islamic State organization (IS) – created in 2014 and of which France remains a member – in the outright destruction of the Palestinian group Hamas, which Israel is determined to achieve.

The move came at the end of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that laster almost an hour and a half, in the latter's offices in Jerusalem. "France is ready for the international coalition against Daech [the Arabic acronym for IS], to which we have committed for our operation in Iraq and Syria, to also be able to fight against Hamas," said Macron, in a brief statement delivered in French during alongside Netanyahu.

Macron defined "our common enemy" with one word: "terrorism." He stated that France shares Israel's grief, with 30 French citizens killed during the attack on October 7, in what is said to have been the largest attack against French citizens since the Nice terrorist attack on July 14, 2016. "I propose to our international partners that we could build a regional and international coalition to fight the terrorist groups that threaten us all," the president continued, encouraging Middle Eastern states to join.

This proposal was drawn up at the Elysée Palace, notably by Macron's political and military advisor Xavier Chatel. It took the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs by surprise. It seems to take into account domestic anti-terrorism issues, with Paris aware of the powerful impact of the conflict on its own soil. The Elysée is seeking to dismiss any solidarity with Hamas, calling on its partners to acknowledge that the Islamist movement must never again be considered a legitimate political entity, whether in Europe or the Middle East.

But associating Hamas with the absolute evil embodied by IS seems unacceptable in Palestine and highly inflammatory in the Arab world, given that Israel's most senior officials have unreservedly equated Hamas fighters with the people of Gaza. It ignores the fact that the party is woven into the fabric of Palestinian society, and that many Palestinians downplay the horror of the October 7 attack, or even choose to ignore it altogether. They see it as the most significant act of war carried out in a hundred years of conflict against the Zionist movement and later the State of Israel.

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