Claude Goasguen, Vice-President of the UMP group in Parliament and Vice-President of the France-Israel Friendship Group in Parliament, considers that it is important to explain Israel, “far from the propaganda to which we have been subjected for many years in France, and I have to say that [Israel’s image] is beginning to improve.” “The election of Nicolas Sarkozy,” he adds, “has reinforced the tendency to no longer consider Israel as the diabolical enemy it seemed to have become,” but truly as “a country with which we needed to re-establish ties.” Goasguen has written a book honouring Israel’s 60 years of existence, and explains in particular some of the confused ideas that have damaged the French perception of the Jewish State during the many years of misunderstanding between the two countries.
Haim Musicant, General Director of CRIF, accompanied this delegation of MPs. It was normal, he said, that CRIF, the political representative organisation of the Jewish community in France, should accept the invitation by the American Jewish Committee – who sponsored the visit – because it is interfacing with these MPs on a daily basis. “It’s always exciting to meet our country’s elected politicians and to support them as they pursue a better understanding of Israel. It also fits with what I would call a new atmosphere in the relations between France and Israel.”
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