Monsieur Barrot, where is your plan to stop Hezbollah?

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot has demanded an emergency UN Security Council meeting following Israel's seizure of Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon, calling it a "major fault" and accusing Israel of violating international law and ceasefire commitments.

With respect to Monsieur Barrot, the major fault lies elsewhere.

Missing the Point - Entirely

Israel did not seize one of the most strategically commanding positions in southern Lebanon for sport. It did so because Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist organisation that has fired thousands of rockets into northern Israel, continues to operate from Lebanese territory in flagrant violation of every ceasefire agreement brokered to date.

Beaufort Castle, perched over 700 metres above the Shebaa region with sweeping views across southern Lebanon, northern Israel and the Syrian border, is not a tourist attraction. It is a critical surveillance and defensive position that allows Israeli forces to monitor and anticipate Hezbollah movements. In a conflict where the enemy hides among civilians and launches attacks from populated areas, controlling the high ground is not aggression, it is elementary military necessity.

A Suggestion for Monsieur Barrot

If France's foreign minister has a brilliant idea for neutralising Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsors through diplomatic means, the UN Security Council chamber would be an excellent place to share it. The world is waiting.

Because the uncomfortable truth is this: every ceasefire brokered without dismantling Hezbollah's military infrastructure has simply given the group time to rearm and regroup. Israel has learned, at enormous cost, that paper agreements mean nothing when the other side treats them as tactical pauses.

France's Diplomatic Theatre

What we are witnessing, once again, is France's trademark diplomatic posturing, loud, morally self-assured, and largely disconnected from the realities on the ground.

Paris specialises in grand gestures at the UN: emergency meetings, strongly worded statements, solemn appeals to international law. What it consistently fails to offer is any credible alternative to the hard security choices Israel faces every day.

Calling an emergency Security Council session over Israel's seizure of a medieval fortress while Hezbollah continues to fire on Israeli civilians is not principled diplomacy. It is theatre, and increasingly unconvincing theatre at that.