War between Israel and Hamas: for Macron, recognition of a Palestinian state is no longer “taboo”

Strong support for supporters of unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Emmanuel Macron assured on Friday that the recognition was no longer “taboo”, despite Israeli warnings about the prospect.

Receiving Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the Elysee Palace, the French president also warned of an “unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe” and a “turning point” that could be triggered by an Israeli offensive on the Palestinian city of Rafah, home to nearly 1.5 million Palestinians. were trapped on the border with Egypt.

Old idea

Following the October 7 unprecedented attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and the conflict it triggered due to massive Israeli repression in the Gaza Strip, Paris affirmed that only a “two-state solution,” Israeli and Palestinian, could help the region out of its rut. And glad that this old idea, muted for many years, is clearly back on the agenda of the United States. We must give this a “decisive and irreversible impetus,” the French president insisted on Friday.

But he took the first significant diplomatic step of threatening to give a unilateral green light in the absence of Israeli will to reach such a negotiated solution. “Recognition of a Palestinian state is not a taboo for France,” warned Emmanuel Macron.

“We owe it to the Palestinians, whose aspirations have been trampled for too long. We owe a debt to the Israelis, who suffered the greatest anti-Semitic massacre of our century. We owe it to a region that seeks to avoid promoters of chaos and sowers of revenge,” he added.

Diplomatic weight

The diplomatic community has been advocating for many years for mutual recognition by Israelis and Palestinians of two states living peacefully side by side. After the prospect became the focus of U.S.-led negotiations in the late 1990s and early 2000s, it languished for years.

Some 140 countries have unilaterally recognized a Palestinian state, but not a single major Western power or G7 member is among them. French, European or even American recognition would have, above all, diplomatic weight: without peace and negotiations, such a state would find it difficult to survive. But brandishing threats appears to be an additional means of putting pressure on Israel.