Macron's mistake: Thinking a Palestinian state will bring peace - editorial

However, does Macron actually think that recognizing Palestine will achieve those goals?

“We must finally build the State of Palestine, ensure its viability and enable it, by accepting its demilitarization and fully recognizing Israel, to contribute to the security of all in the Middle East,” he wrote.

France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish and Muslim communities, will become the first major Western country to recognize a Palestinian state after Spain announced its recognition last year, and it may spur greater momentum for other countries to join the bandwagon.

In declaring France’s intentions, Macron will have his country joining India, Cyprus, Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, Ireland, and Mexico, among the 147 of the 193 member states of the United Nations, who have recognized Palestine.

As expected, Macron’s announcement was met with criticism from both Israel and the US.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded that a Palestinian state “rewards terror” and poses an existential threat to Israel.

It “risks creating another Iranian proxy, just as Gaza became,” which would be “a launch pad to annihilate Israel – not to live in peace beside it,” he said.

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman echoed Netanyahu, writing on X that “Recognizing a Palestinian state is a reward for terrorism and encouragement for Hamas, an organization that carried out the most horrific massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. This is not justice, it is surrender to terrorism.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the Trump administration rejected Macron’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state.

“This reckless decision only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace. It is a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th,” he wrote on X.

In light of the Hamas massacre of October 7, and ongoing rampant terrorism and terror cells metastasizing in the West Bank, now is clearly not the time for the birth of a Palestinian state.

However the reaction of some coalition members and of the Yesha Council to immediately apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea and Samaria at this given moment is also unhelpful and counterproductive. In fact, you can’t ignore the roaring static in the Israeli background around Macron’s declaration.

Only last week, the Knesset approved, albeit in a non-binding motion by 71-13, a motion to annex the West Bank, declaring it “an inseparable part of the Land of Israel, the historical, cultural, and spiritual homeland of the Jewish people.”

It called on the government to “apply Israeli sovereignty, law, judgment, and administration to all the areas of Jewish settlement of all kinds in Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley.”

And at the end of the week, Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu of Otzma Yehudit further fanned flames by stating that “The government is rushing to erase Gaza, and thank God we are erasing this evil. All of Gaza will be Jewish.”

In a response that would be comical if it weren’t sadly reflecting the state of Israel’s governing coalition, Netanyahu said that a minister in his government “does not speak for the government I lead. He is not a member of the Security Cabinet that determines the conduct of the war.”

If that’s true, then why is he and his far-Right colleagues in Otzma Yehudit, who are doing so much damage to the country, still part of the government and giving countries like France ammunition to their claim that a Palestinian state is the only way to prevent a full Israeli takeover of the West Bank and Gaza?

No, a Palestinian state is not viable, at least not in the foreseeable future. But neither is a long-term Israeli presence in Gaza.

Israel needs a unified policy to deal with the potentially growing snowball effect of France’s declaration, not outrageous statements from racist ministers or non-binding resolutions from an unsuccessful government.