Quarterly Updates for (1 Apr 2019 — 30 Jun 2019)

                France’s outgoing ambassador to the U.S. Gérard Araud told the Atlantic in an interview on 19 April that he believes Israel is an apartheid state. “They [Israel] have the West Bank, but at the same time they don’t have to make the painful decision about the Palestinians, really making them really, totally stateless or making them citizens of Israel. They won’t make them citizens of Israel. So they will have to make it official, which is we know the situation, which is apartheid. There will be officially an apartheid state. They are in fact already.” Ambassador Araud also said that U.S. president Donald Trump told French president Emmanuel Macron that he has given “everything to the Israelis; the Israelis will have to give me something.” Araud’s comments angered Israeli officials, who subsequently summoned France’s ambassador to Israel Hélène Le Gal for a reprimand and barred Israeli officials from meeting Araud, who was scheduled to travel to Israel as a civilian at the beginning of May.