PARIS // The United States and Israel were facing controversy on Monday surrounding each country’s representation at an anti-extremism rally in Paris, attended by more than 40 world leaders and over one million people.
The march on Sunday was a show of unity after last week’s terrorist attacks in the French capital, which killed 17 civilians.
US secretary of state John Kerry said on Monday that he would travel to Paris later this week, following sharp criticism of the Obama administration for not sending a senior official to the rally.
During a visit to India, Mr Kerry said: “I really think that this is sort of quibbling a little bit in the sense that our assistant secretary of state Victoria Nuland was there and marched, our ambassador was there and marched, many people from the embassy were there and marched.”
Mr Kerry, who will arrive in Paris on Thursday, said that as soon as he heard about the march, he asked his team what the earliest time was that he could go.
Meanwhile, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was also facing criticism on Monday after it was revealed that France had asked him to stay away from the march but that he ignored the request and attended anyway.
Israeli media reported that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas had also been asked not to attend the rally in a bid to avoid the event being clouded by the Middle East conflict.
When Mr Netanyahu rejected the appeals of the French government, however, Mr Abbas was swiftly invited, Channel Two television and Israeli newspapers said.
The news followed claims of bad behaviour at the march after the Israeli prime minister was seen pushing his way to the front of the procession after earlier attempting to push his way onto a bus.
Liberal newspaper Haaretz said that the prime minister’s actions had infuriated the French president, who demonstrated his “anger” at a ceremony in Paris’s main synagogue on Sunday to commemorate the deaths of four Jews killed in last week’s attack on a kosher supermarket.
“[W]hen Mr Netanyahu’s turn at the podium arrived, the French president got up from his seat and made an early exit,” the paper said.
The Israeli prime minister has also been accused of exploiting the attacks as an opportunity to campaign for a March 17 general election, in which he is seeking a fourth term.
On Monday, Mr Netanyahu – who has made the dangers of radical Islam a key part of his campaign – called on world leaders to support his nation’s fight against terrorism, as he met with envoys of the French-Jewish community.
He later visited the kosher supermarket in eastern Paris, where admirers were gathered, chanting his name.
Mr Netanyahu has also come under fire for earlier comments in which he called on French Jews to migrate to Israel.
* Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Bloomberg
