On a related note to the previous post about the shifting U.S.-Israel relationship, there’s been a lot discussion in France regarding the shift in France’s posture in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict under President Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy has been accused of essentially adopting a pro-Israeli position that reverses France’s historic sympathy and advocacy for the Palestinian cause. I’d argue that that misses a lot of the context, and some of the finer points, of Sarkozy’s shift. To begin with, France’s historic pro-Palestinian position is no longer as necessary as it once was, for the simple reason that it has become the Western […]