French President Nicholas Sarkozy insulted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a hot-miked conversation with President Obama because he had wanted France to get credit for the release of Israeli soldier and French citizen Gilad Shalit.
I was mad about not being let in on [the] Shalit agreement,” the Israeli paper Haaretz quotes Sarkozy as saying to Jewish leaders in Paris. “Sarkozy was very frustrated by the Israeli refusal [to let France transport Shalit home], and the fact that he received no credit for Shalit’s release,” Haaretz explains.
In response, French officials have requested that Israel release a Palstinean prisoner (and French citizen) who “was arrested in 2005 as part of a cell from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that had planned to murder Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,” Haaretz says.
