Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki on Thursday greeted the memory of former French President Jacques Chirac, "a friend of the Palestinian people," who died Thursday morning at the age of 86.
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"With the death of former French President Jacques Chirac, the Palestinian people and their just cause have lost a friend," said the Palestinian minister to AFP from New York where he participates in the UN General Assembly . Among the striking images for the Palestinians of the president who led France from 1995 to 2007, is the great anger that Jacques Chirac piqued on October 22, 1996 against an Israeli police too urgent in the old Jerusalem, in the Palestinian sector of the Holy City occupied by Israel.
"He challenged the arbitrary measures here"
"Do you want to go back to my plane?" "Do you want me to board my plane?" He had said to the chief of police. The images had been around the world. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then apologized. "He challenged the arbitrary measures here," said Riyad al-Malki, noting that Jacques Chirac had accompanied former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat "until the last moments".
For his part, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin presented the condolences of the State of Israel in a message to the "French people". "We will remember his courageous gesture of recognition of France's responsibility during the Holocaust," said Reuven Rivlin.
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, head of the Israeli government from July 1999 to March 2001, praised his "friend" Jacques Chirac despite their differences. "He is a leader with whom I had a lot of controversy, but I always respected," he wrote on Twitter, greeting "a man of peace".