Herzog calls PM’s conduct in France ‘symptomatic’ of his rule

Labor leader Isaac Herzog says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acted correctly by deciding to go to France to take part in a rally for the victims of Friday’s terror attack, but behaved wrongly in the hours leading to his decision to go.

Speaking to Ynet, the Labor leader says this is “symptomatic” of Netanyahu’s governance and warns viewers that another term with Netanyahu as prime minister will bring “more of the same.”

“I think the decision to go was correct. But everything that happened before it, all the wrong decisions… There is something also to the fact that the French were not enthusiastic about this aggressive entrance to the stage, they wanted to keep it a French event, a European event.

“France, the same France that Netanyahu rushed to, is the country that led a difficult diplomatic campaign for Israel at the United Nations Security Council. This is not going to change. Israeli-French relations are a symptom of the problem of our standing in the world under the rule of Benjamin Netanyahu.”

Herzog also criticizes Netanyahu’s call to French Jews to make aliya: “It’s about walking a fine line. Aliyah is a dear aspect of Zionism and an inherent part of our life here, but one must be careful because it’s not the French government or French democracy that waged war on the Jews – it’s segments within the population.”