No, not really. But they might just as well (again, thanks to LGF):
French soldiers in Lebanon who feel threatened by aggressive Israeli overflights are permitted to shoot at IAF fighter jets, a high-ranking French military officer told The Jerusalem Post.
Wednesday, several days after meeting with an IDF general in Paris to discuss what he said was a "blatant violation of the cease-fire."
Last weekend, Maj.-Gen. Ido Nehushtan, head of the IDF Planning Directorate, traveled to Paris and met with military officials to explain why the IAF flies over Lebanon despite the UN-brokered cease-fire.
Nehushtan, new to his post and previously deputy commander of the air force, told his French counterparts that Israel was conducting the flights to collect intelligence on Hizbullah positions in southern Lebanon.
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The French told Nehushtan they would view further aggressive flyovers as a violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
So, basically the IAF is attempting to at least do part of what the useless UNIFIL is supposed to do in order to enforce UN Security Council Resolution 1701, and the French call it a violation of the said resolution. But wait, there is more:
France's furor at the overflights was not divorced from French domestic political considerations, government officials in Jerusalem said Wednesday.
France is scheduled to hold the first round of presidential elections in April, and one of those reportedly considering tossing her hat into the ring is Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie.
According to these officials, taking a tough stance toward Israel on the issue - a position that grabs headlines in France - helps her raise her profile.
The officials said it didn't hurt Alliot-Marie politically to be seen as someone who needed to be "held back" from responding forcefully to the overflights.
So, there you have it. During World War 2 the Nazis had a bunch of allies who were either indifferent or outright hostile to the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Italian Jews were relatively safe under Mussolini, until Italy switched sides, and the Germans occupied the northern part of the country. Bulgarian tsar Boris protected his Jewish subjects. Jews even served in Finnish Armed Forces. Hungarian Government resisted the Nazi policies toward the Jews. In Romania majority of the Jews also survived the Holocaust. Basically, in the instances when all these Nazi allies instituted anti-Semitic policies, they did so only to the minimum in order to satisfy the Germans. Their main reason for joining the Germans in the first place was their fear (well founded, I might add) of Stalin's Soviet Union. And only Vichy Government actively collaborated with Nazi policies and ran its own concentration camp in Drancy. What has changed?
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