Our fairweather ally France has surprised absolutely no one today by condemning Israel for stepping up Operation Cast Lead.

France, which handed the EU presidency to the Czechs on Jan. 1, has led calls for a ceasefire and hosted a meeting of EU foreign minsters to reinforce the message on Tuesday…

The French Foreign Ministry said: “France condemns the Israeli ground offensive against Gaza as it condemns the continuation of rocket firing.”

It said the “dangerous military escalation” complicated efforts to end the fighting and bring aid to the area.

Yeah, okay. Instead of killing the people firing rockets into Israel, let’s get the same terror group that signed that never observed the original cease-fire and officially ended it last week to agree to another one. Oh, and send more aid to Palestinians. Surely that’ll fix the problem.

Seriously, France? When we or Israel need advice on how to execute an unconditional surrender flawlessly, we’ll call you. Until then you can shut up.

The new EU leadership, on the other hand, is taking a pro-Israeli tone.

PARIS, Jan 3 (Reuters) – France condemned an Israeli land assault in the Gaza Strip on Saturday just hours after the Czech presidency of the European Union said the action was “defensive, not offensive”…

In Prague, Czech EU presidency spokesman Jiri Potuznik said Israel, which launched air bombardments against Gaza a week ago in retaliation against rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled area, appeared to be acting defensively.

“At the moment, from the perspective of the last days, we understand this step as a defensive, not offensive, action,” he said.

Oh, and a source in the British government tells Reuters that the “defensive, not offensive” statement is not the position of the British government. Craptastic.