An official at the Israeli embassy in Paris worked to torpedo the visit of Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich, who participated in the OECD conference in Paris last week, Channel 12 News reported on Monday evening.

According to senior members of the Jewish community in Paris, an official at the embassy urged other employees to demonstrate against Smotrich and actively demanded that officials heading the largest Jewish organizations in France refrain from meeting with him.

The acting ambassador did not greet Smotrich at the airport and a representative of the embassy arrived at the last minute in an Uber for a memorial service for those killed in the  the Hypercacher attack in 2015.

Following the report, Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman, the chairman of the Constitution Committee, called on Foreign Minister Eli Cohen to investigate. “This evening a news item was published on Channel 12 that revealed that the acting ambassador and employees of the embassy in France actively acted against Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich during his visit to the country,” Rothman wrote. “According to the report, the ambassador and other employees contacted officials in the Jewish community in the country and worked to prevent meetings between them and the Finance Minister.”

“As is well known, the role of Israeli embassies in the world is to act professionally, non-politically, and with statesmanship. The conduct that emerges from the said report is severe and unprecedented and undermines the very justification for the activity of the embassy and the entire foreign service. There should be no tolerance for an unprecedented situation in which embassy employees are acting in a distinctly political manner while harming the government of Israel and its position in France and the world.”

“Furthermore, it seems that the described conduct fits the parameters of an offense of misuse of a governmental position as defined in section 280 of the Penal Law, 1977-7737, and even a breach of trust as defined in section 284 of the law, and requires the launching of a criminal investigation, and at the very least a disciplinary one.”

“I request that you immediately summon the ambassador back to Israel, and act to remove any person in the embassy in France who acted contrary to his legal duty.”

MK Ohad Tal from Smotrich’s party also appealed to Foreign Minister Cohen: “Such conduct is a breach of trust of the position and toward the State of Israel, contradicts every obligation required by the ethical code for a civil servant [as attached in the appendix] and is an outrageous incident that cannot be ignored.”

“Therefore, I appeal to you to review the details of the case and examine the continuation of the term of the acting Israeli ambassador in Paris and order his immediate suspension as well as the implementation of severe measures against anyone found to be involved in this unprecedented incident.”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)