On Sunday, the day more than one million people marched through the streets of Paris—down the Boulevard Voltaire, past the Place Léon Blum—Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at Paris’s Grand Synagogue. The temple is a surprisingly classical, somewhat Byzantine building not far from the stained-glass domes of Paris’s famous Right Bank department stores. For years, it has had a security guard outside, suspiciously eyeing any passerby who stops only to read the standing sign on the history of the shul of Victory Street. Today, there is far greater security. To protect Jewish schools and other “sensitive” locations, France is mobilizing 10,000 soldiers and 4,700 police officers. On Sunday, in the temple, Netanyahu told the Jews present, “You have a full right to live secure and peaceful lives with equal rights wherever you desire, including here in France.” He went on, “These days we are blessed with another privilege, a privilege that didn’t exist for generations of Jews—the privilege to join their brothers and sisters in their historic homeland of Israel.” He spoke, not for the first time, of every French Jew being welcomed to Israel “with open arms.” French President François Hollande, former President Nicolas Sarkozy, and Prime Minister Manuel Valls were present, but kept quiet.

When Netanyahu stopped speaking, the crowd broke spontaneously into the Marseillaise, as if, in a tug of war of identities, France had won. Many saw the moment as an embarrassment for the prime minister: the powerful Netanyahu rebuked. The Israeli journalist Dimi Reider took to social media to say that bellicose Bibi had made an “ass out of himself.” Hollande had asked Netanyahu not to attend the march in the first place, and then Netanyahu changed his mind. (Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan Monday said he could "hardly understand how he dared to go.") Then on camera, Netanyahu seemed to jostle his way into the front row of the marching line. (The shoving maneuver has already inspired a computer game.) In Israel, a video has gone viral of Netanyahu waiting for a bus to take him to the rally—after missing the bus that took other world leaders—looking uncharacteristically "nervous, dejected, beaten down." Writing for Haaretz, Asher Schechter called it a "series of unfortunate humiliations," a "PR disaster."

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