Sarkozy: Israel has no better security partner than France

French president responds positively to request by World Jewish Congress official to push for unprecedented sanctions against Iran.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to stand with Israel against Iran during a 90-minute meeting he held with the World Jewish Congress at the Elysée Palace in Paris, according to sources from the gathering who spoke with The Jerusalem Post.

“Israel has no better security partner than France when it comes to Iran,” Sarkozy assured the Jewish leaders, according to the sources.

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The head of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald S. Lauder asked Sarkozy to push for unprecedented sanctions against the Iranian regime to prevent it from acquiring nuclear weapons.

France has always taken a tough stance against Iran’s nuclear program and will continue to do so, Sarkozy assured the Jewish leaders, according to the sources.

France favors “seriously ratcheting up sanctions” against Iran, Sarkozy said, according to the sources.

Diplomacy is the best way to avert a nuclear Iran, he said, but at the same time he implied that a military option was on the table. He was very vague about France position with regard to a military option, the sources said. But he had a clear reaction to media reports that Israel might independently strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Sarkozy also said that it would be a mistake for Israel to unilaterally attempt a military strike against Iran, according to the sources. Such a strike “would be disastrous,” Sarkozy said, according to the sources

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I'll resist posting about France rounding up Jews, saving the SS and Gestapo the trouble. And opposing our invasion of North Africa. After all, Vichy wasn't France, was it? And there were French patriots. But a snip from The Cherbourg Boats . France, Israel's best friend. Till the Jews survived 67.

French Premier de Gaulle was enraged. He “declared that the French arms embargo would now be total.” This meant the Cherbourg boats too.
Mordecai Limon immediately sent Defense Minister Moshe Dayan news of the total embargo. Dayan was one of the many who were deeply disappointed by the change of relations between de Gaulle and Israel. In the 1950s, Dayan had agreed with Ben-Gurion when he called de Gaulle “a true friend, a true ally.” De Gaulle “had sent Dayan a personal letter of congratulations on his book The Sinai Campaign 1956.”
Now de Gaulle was refusing to remove the embargo from the boats that had already been paid for by Israel.
Three more missile boats were almost complete in Cherbourg Harbor. On January 4, 1969, a week after de Gaulle made news with his announcement of the complete embargo on weapons bound for Israel, small crews made their way onto the boats. The Israeli crews spent three hours getting them ready. When all was set, they “raised the Israeli flag and set off. No one challenged them. They simply sailed into the English Channel and never returned.”
The French Minister of Defense demanded to know what had become of the ships. Mordecai Limon responded: “They were given orders to sail to Haifa. They belong to us.” Prime Minister de Gaulle was furious. So were others in the French Cabinet. But they got little help from the locals in the French coastal town of Cherbourg. “In Cherbourg, naval authorities and customs men simply shrugged their shoulders. By an extraordinary coincidence, no one seemed to have read a newspaper, watched television or listened to a radio during the preceding days. Said one of the local people: ‘We did not know anything of the embargo.’” Israel was lucky to have made some firm friends among the local population.
Officials in Cherbourg “claimed that they first heard of the embargo in a letter of instructions received from Paris on (January) 6th - 2 days after the boats had left. They produced documents and a statement from the post office supporting their claims.” They said something must have been wrong with the postal service.
While accusations flew between the government in Paris and the locals in Cherbourg, construction continued on the last five missile boats “as if nothing had happened.” Still, French naval and customs authorities were bothered by claims of negligence and kept a sharp eye on the last remaining boats.
In the summer of 1969, Mordecai Limon, still in France, “renounced all further Israeli interest in the boats and opened negotiations with regard to compensation.” But the Israelis purposely quibbled over details of the negotiations for months. Meanwhile, construction of the boats continued, and an Israeli team remained in Cherbourg.
The Israelis, of course, had no intention of renouncing their boats, and had every every intention of getting them. The question was how to do so - and legally, because Israel did not want to worsen the already aggravated relations between France and herself over the issue.
On the other hand, the War of Attrition was by then in full swing, and the Egyptians had no difficulty in obtaining advanced armaments from the Russians. Meanwhile, 5 missile boats remained in Cherbourg Harbor, and Israeli pre-paid orders for Mirage aircraft went unfulfilled.
Israel decided to get the boats, but in a way the French would not suspect.
In November 1969 a man named Martin Siem came to visit Felix Amiot, the French supervisor of the missile boats in Cherbourg, and expressed an interest in purchasing the boats. He presented himself as a Norwegian shipping owner, who was involved in oil exploration off the coast of Alaska. He claimed his company was based in Panama.
The two quickly closed the deal, and the French government approved it.
Government officials didn’t check the deal as clearly as they might have. The Panamanian-based Norwegian firm had in fact only been created a few weeks before. Martin Siem, who was in truth a very big shipping magnate in Norway, was friends with an Israeli shipping magnate named Mila Brenner. Brenner persuaded Siem to work as a front man on behalf of Israel.
It seems quite likely that the French ministerial committee assigned to examine all French arms exports must have contained at least one, if not several, people who were sympathetic to Israel and were willing to help her get the missile boats. This would seem to be so because the cover story Israel used seemed highly improbable. But “there was nothing the Israelis could think of which would make more sense.” As Stewart Steven writes: “These were missile boats, and there was no way that fact could be disguised.”
But the French were apparently eager to get rid of these boats and their problems quickly, and at the same time they would be paid enough to cover the costs of repaying Israel. Moreover, there was even a clause in the contract that affirmed that the boats could not be re-exported. From the French point of view, this meant the boats would not find their way into Israeli hands.
Young sailors began arriving in Cherbourg. It was explained to the locals that they were Norwegians, part of the team that had purchased the ships, which also explained why so many were blonde-haired and blue-eyed. The fifty or so young men were in fact Israelis, perhaps with backgrounds in Nordic countries, but Israelis nevertheless.
Meanwhile, about 70 other Israelis remained in Cherbourg. No one seemed to question their presence. They even reserved space at a local restaurant for a festive meal on Christmas Eve - so as to give the impression that they weren’t going anywhere.
The plan was to take the boats on Christmas Eve, when all of France would be celebrating and it seemed very unlikely that many people would be paying attention to the goings-on at Cherbourg Harbor.
Cherbourg residents began to get used to the “Norwegians” and the more veteran Israelis as well. Even so, there was some odd behavior a discerning citizen could recognize. As Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan, and Eli Landau write in The Mossad: Inside Stories, some locals “noticed that some of the ‘Norwegians’ were such accomplished linguists that they included Hebrew among their repertoire of languages.” The ‘Norwegians’, as we saw, were really Israelis.
Ezra Kedem, a naval officer who had been involved with the taking of three of the Cherbourg boats in January 1969, was there again in December. He scanned the harbor and the sea beyond with high-powered binoculars. He peered at the two channels used by ships coming to or leaving Cherbourg. The more commonly used western channel was 65 feet deep. The eastern channel was used less often, “not only because it was narrower than the other, but because of the unstable submerged rocks which had accumulated in it for years.” The Israelis had used this channel when taking out the three boats in January. Radar was unable to detect every nuance of that channel - a fact Ezra Kedem knew from his conversations with the French authorities.
The Israelis would use the same channel again this time.
By late afternoon, about 20 Israeli sailors were aboard each of the five boats. But a storm had arisen and a strong wind was blowing. These were bad conditions for any ship, but even more so for the missile boats, which were not designed for such conditions. But there was no choice. They had to sail that night.
As the engines started up around 9 p.m., seats reserved for 70 Israelis at the local restaurant we mentioned above remained unfilled, and the meals uneaten.
French Intelligence had noticed the many unwarranted coincidences in the previous few weeks, but either they or their superiors decided not to take action against the Israelis. At some point on the night of December 24/25, 1969, the five missile boats engined their way out of the harbor into the English Channel.
Two men came to watch the last boats leave Cherbourg. One was Mordecai Limon. The other was Felix Amiot, the French supervisor of the construction of the ships at Cherbourg. He had concealed it, but he had known about the Israeli operation from the beginning.
Amiot was not the only one who participated in this “conspiracy of silence.” In a “dockside cafe, the barman remarked to customers huddled over their glasses of red wine: ‘I see the Norwegians have left for Alaska.’ His audience roared with laughter.”
On December 26 local and then international news picked up wind of the story. The French government soon knew what had happened and were furious again. But with the boats on the high seas already, they recognized there was little they could do. Nevertheless, the French Foreign Minister, Maurice Schumann, did summon two Israeli diplomats to his office in the Quai D’Orsay. He had just returned from a tour of Algeria “where he had promised friendly relations and large supplies of armaments in return for Arab oil.” And then the Israelis took the Cherbourg boats. Schumann was sure that the Arabs would see it as French collusion in the matter, and he felt humiliated. He warned the Israeli diplomats that if the boats did show up in Israel, “the consequences will be very grave indeed…”
The Israeli government did not accept direct responsibility at first. The boats did receive attention on the high seas however, as the sailors aboard viewed a myriad of French Mirages flying overhead. Later they encountered American and even Soviet ships. But the boats motored on to Israel unimpeded. As the ships approached the shores of Israel, an escort of Israeli fighter planes accompanied them.
They were safe then, and they were received with public jubilation when they arrived in Israel.
There were repercussions in France. Mordecai Limon, who had lived in France for seven years, was asked to leave. Two French generals were dismissed from their posts for their part in approving the sale of the missile boats to the fictitious Norwegian/Panamanian firm. Felix Amiot was blamed for his part in the affair, but he vigorously defended himself. “Security is not my problem. My job was to build ships. I got along very well with the Israelis, but as far as I know that is not a crime.”
The citizens of Cherbourg continued to keep quiet about the whole affair. And their silence - which the French government was well aware of - was a boon to Israel, for without it she may never have gotten the boats of Cherbourg.

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