In his recent letter to Benjamin Netanyahu, French President Emmanuel Macron crossed a line of intolerable ignominy. He began by assuring that France would continue to protect its Jewish citizens, only to immediately urge Israel to halt its “illegal and murderous headlong rush.” The link he drew between these two points is chilling.

To describe Israel in such terms is to echo, word for word, the rhetoric of the state’s most determined enemies. Macron’s letter reveals three things:

Never before had a French president dared to insult Israel by accusing it of “murderous folly”—a charge usually reserved for the most virulent antisemites. Worse still, Macron suggested that Israel itself provokes antisemitism through its policies. This is an old antisemitic trope: blaming........

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