Renaud Girard, a very senior journalist from the French daily Le Figaro, recalled, during an Oct. 30 video program for “Le Figaro Live” for Le Figaro’s international club, the immense hope raised by the Oslo Accords, and accused Netanyahu’s campaign against Rabin as having led to the Prime Minister’s Nov. 4, 1995 murder. Renaud Girard has been Le Figaro’s top war correspondent for 25 years. He is the son of World War II resistance fighters, attended France’s top elite schools, and was a diplomat for some years. Every once in a while, he strikes dissonant chords with those in France who have capitulated to the Anglo-American empire.
“I was in Gaza, sent by Le Figaro, at the time of the signing of the Oslo Accords, and it was evening, since there’s a time difference with America. And everyone was in front of their TVs. It was quite warm, in September, and the windows were open. And when Yasser Arafat and Rabin shook hands, there was a huge outcry throughout Gaza City. I went down to the street, and all the streets were filled with people. I saw this extraordinary spectacle: Palestinian teenagers running up to Israeli soldiers—because at the time, Israeli soldiers were everywhere, guarding all public buildings—running up to Israeli soldiers to embrace them. And this peace was organized in an extremely sensible way, by Rabin who said, ‘I fight terrorism as if there were no peace negotiations, and I negotiate as if there were no terrorism,’ and that was very sensible.
