FRENCH President Emmanuel Macron is leaning towards recognising a Palestinian state, amid Israel’s intensified Gaza offensive and escalating violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
There seems to be a growing sense of urgency in Paris to act now before the idea of a two-state solution vanishes forever.
French officials are weighing up the move ahead of a UN conference, which France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting between June 17-20, to lay out the parameters for a roadmap to a Palestinian state.
“Only a political solution will make it possible to restore peace and build for the long term,” Macron said yesterday during a visit to Indonesia.
“Together with Saudi Arabia, we will soon be organising a conference on Gaza in New York to give fresh impetus to the recognition of a Palestinian state and the recognition of Israel and its right to live in peace and security in this region,” he added.
“We must move from words to deeds,” said Macron’s Middle East adviser Anne-Claire Legendre.
“Faced with facts on the ground, the prospect of a Palestinian state must be maintained. Irreversible and concrete measures are necessary.”
If Macron does go ahead, France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities, would become the first Western heavyweight to recognise a Palestinian state, potentially giving greater momentum to a movement hitherto dominated by smaller nations that are generally more critical of Israel.
“If France moves, several countries will follow,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told Reuters.
Meanwhile, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Israel’s continued assault on the Gaza Strip has become unacceptable and must stop immediately, warning against any move to forcibly displace Palestinians from the enclave.
He was addressing Parliament about the situation in Gaza amid mounting Western criticism of Israel, which invaded the Palestinian territory after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas on its southern communities.
Italy has been a vocal supporter of Israel but there has been growing unease within the right-wing coalition government over the relentless and long-running military campaign.
In all, more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s air and ground war, Gaza health authorities say.
“The bombing must end, humanitarian assistance must resume as soon as possible, respect for international humanitarian law must be restored,” Tajani told a heated debate in the lower house of Parliament yesterday.
Meanwhile, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has rebuked Israel over its widening military operations in Gaza.
“What the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip, I no longer understand the goal,” he said.
“To harm the civilian population in such a way, as has increasingly been the case in recent days, can no longer be justified as a fight against terrorism.”
Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul then said there could be unspecified “consequences” in a sequence of conservative remarks co-ordinated with Social Democrat coalition partners, marking a rhetorical break from decades of unconditional German backing for a country to which Berlin feels committed by history.
Separately, Merz’s fellow German conservative, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, said deaths of children in the Gaza war have been “abhorrent”, reflecting the breadth of disquiet in German elite circles.
Only 36 per cent of Germans now have a positive view of Israel, a 10 percentage point fall from four years ago, a survey for the Bertelsmann Foundation found.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has said that “Israeli strikes in Gaza go beyond what is necessary to fight Hamas” as the death toll continues to mount.
She also said that the EU did not support a new aid distribution model backed by the US and Israel which bypasses the UN and other humanitarian organisations.
“We don’t support the privatisation of the distribution of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian aid can not be weaponised,” she said.
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