“You’re Pissing Me Off!” Israeli Ambassador Rips European Envoys

The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem was the scene of a tense showdown between Israeli and European diplomats last month. Photo: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

A recent meeting between Israel Foreign Ministry staff and visiting European envoys ended in a shouting match, according to details now being made public.

Aliza Bin-Noun, who until last year served as Israel’s ambassador to France, was incensed after a delegation of 16 European diplomats and ambassadors visiting the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem last month used the meeting to mercilessly criticize Israel. That according to a Walla News report published on Thursday.

Bin-Noun, who is now the director of the European Affairs Department at the Foreign Ministry, expected the Europeans to raise concerns over recent clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank. But when they presented a letter that also condemned Israeli building plans in Judea, Samaria and even Jerusalem, she was having none of it.

“After everything the new Israeli government has been doing for the Palestinians, you come to complain?” Bin-Noun reportedly shouted at the European envoys.

Israel’s new “government of change” has implemented measures to bolster the Palestinian economy, issued thousands of additional permits to Palestinian laborers seeking work in Israel-proper, loaned millions of dollars to the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority and renewed direct high-level contacts with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

The European complaints seemed to suggest that none of this was fully appreciated.

This is a lesson Israel has had to learn over and over again. No matter how much it gives, concedes and surrenders, it’s never enough for the international community.

As the foreign diplomats and ambassadors continued to press their points, Bin-Noun reportedly brought the meeting to an abrupt end by shouting: “You’re pissing me off!”

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat later told Walla News: “Sometimes European positions are presented in a manner that is unacceptable to us and this deserves a sharp and clear response, even if our reaction isn’t nice toward the Europeans.”