Operation Serval of the ground and the populations". Mathieu Guidère, a scholar of Islam and the Arab world at the University of Toulouse, said in an interview published in the newsmagazine Jeune Afrique, that without the French military intervention the state of Mali would have fallen. France's stated rationale for the operation is that to do otherwise would allow "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the intervention in a phone call with French President François Hollande as "a brave step against extremist Islamic terrorism". Egypt's former President Mohammed Morsi, an Islamist, criticized
Non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War Non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War During the Spanish Civil War, several countries followed a principle of non-intervention, to avoid any potential escalation and possible expansion of the war to other nations, which would result in the signing of the Non-Intervention Agreement in August 1936 and the setting up of the Non-Intervention Committee, which first met in September. Primarily arranged by the French and British governments, important members of the committee also included the Soviet Union, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Ultimately, the committee had the support of 27 nations. A plan to control materials coming into the country was