Report: France did not want Netanyahu at the rally. When Netanyahu insisted, it invited Mahmoud Abbas as well.

Channel 2 reported Sunday that there was some ugly international wrangling behind the scenes of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's changing plans for attending the rally in Paris Sunday.

Netanyahu's bureau said Saturday evening that the prime minister would not be attending the anti-terror rally, citing security considerations. A short time later, however, it turned out that he would indeed be going.

According to the report, Jerusalem and Paris exchanged diplomatic blows over the matter. Netanyahu contacted a “senior French official” and asked to attend the rally, but France said it did not want him there, because his presence would create "difficulty in arranging the rally."

Netanyahu agreed and said he would not fly, but changed his mind when he learned that ministers Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Liberman intend to attend the rally.

He informed the French of the decision, and in response the French said that if Netanyahu attends, they would invite Mahmoud Abbas as well.

Netanyahu (left), Abbas and Abdullah 2 (right) Reuters

The French embassy in Israel refused to comment on the report, said Channel 2.

Herzog: Netanyahu's considerations political

Labor Party Chairman Yitzhak Herzog commented Sunday on the Israeli delegation which went to the memorial ceremony in Paris, saying he thought it was "overblown".

"My son and I considered attending the event, but we felt that that it would look like we were exploiting it for our own political purposes, and so decided to forego it," he told a people at a Labor party event that was taking place in Moshav Hadid.

"For Netanyahu, all his considerations are purely political. He saw Bennett and Lieberman going and decided to go, too."