France Is Right to Recognize Palestine

And Canada is right to join them. Other countries should follow France’s example and recognize a Palestinian state.

This article is part of a debate from The Next Move. Evan Gottesman argues that French recognition of Palestine represents a much-needed shock to the system. After you read his piece, check out Uriel Epshtein’s article, which makes the case against recognizing Palestine—and let us know where you land in the debate!

Evan Gottesman is director of communications and special projects at the Renew Democracy Initiative.

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If war is politics by other means, then war without a political horizon is just senseless destruction. In the nearly two years since the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, Israel has refused to articulate a plan for the day after it removes the Palestinian terrorist group from Gaza.

Into this strategic void steps Emannuel Macron. Last week, the French president announced that his country would recognize the State of Palestine—meaning the Palestinian Authority/PLO—in the West Bank and Gaza. Now, it looks like Canada and others will join them. They are right to do so: Israel’s evasiveness means international leadership is required.

Critics quickly weighed in against Macron’s move. Some detractors dismissed it as hollow symbolism, since no Palestinian state currently exists. Israeli officials and their allies in the US have decried it as a reward for Hamas terrorism.

The French move is not just a symbolic nod, nor is it a win for Hamas. It is part of a full court press to organize European and Arab states around a political strategy to end the Gaza war, dismantle Hamas, and subvert the untenable status quo ante in Israel and Palestine by promoting a two-state solution. France has cleverly gotten Saudi Arabia, whose recognition Israel craves, to co-sign their recent initiatives.

For decades, Israel’s Western allies avoided recognizing Palestine under the pretense that it would hurt the cause of peace. The Israeli government abused that goodwill to further entrench the occupation, and it has only doubled down since October 7. While Hamas bears primary responsibility for kicking off the war with an unprecedented massacre, the terror group’s crimes are not license for Israeli conquest and settlement in the territories. With Israel intransigent and the United States passive (or worse), countries like France are going to have to step up.

Why recognizing Palestine matters now

The Israeli government has categorically ruled out restoring the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, despite the PA’s record of security cooperation in the West Bank. The PA has sustained security ties with Israel since the start of the Gaza war, even though it assumes enormous risks by doing so.

Officials in Jerusalem thanked their partners in Ramallah by mulling returning Jewish settlements to Gaza. Talk of resettling the Strip began almost immediately after October 7. Now, those ideas have Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s imprimatur—in the coming days, he is expected to propose annexing parts of Gaza.

And that’s only Gaza. With outside attention split between Gaza, Iran, and Syria, Israel is also tightening its hold on the West Bank. Last year, for the first time since the Oslo Accords, settlers established outposts in Area B—territory allocated to the Palestinian Authority under the Israel-PLO treaties of the 1990s. Israel regularly undercuts the PA’s ability to govern, withholding tax revenues and preventing the payment of civil servants.

Recognizing Palestine is a rejection of creeping Israeli annexation. It denies normalization to the Israeli occupation, putting Israel in the uncomfortable company of other countries that seize their neighbors’ sovereign territory. It’s especially urgent when the settlement machine is moving full-steam ahead.

No excuses

How does recognizing Palestine square with the Hamas threat? It’s an important question, because Hamas cannot be part of any future political solution, and anyone who talks about a Palestinian state needs to account for this.

However, rather than engage with French-led diplomacy, Israeli and American officials have defaulted to predictable non-answers. In Jerusalem and Washington, Macron’s move was decried as capitulation to Hamas terror.

Israeli foreign Minister Gideon Saar set the tone, saying of the French decision that:

It represents a reward to Hamas and terrorism in the wake of October 7.

Saar’s American counterpart, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, echoed that claim:

This reckless decision only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace. It is a slap in the face to the victims of October 7th.

Drawing a connection between October 7 and France’s explicitly pro-two-state initiative is risible.

Hamas’s goal is a single state, displacing Israel between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Its terrorism is carried out in pursuit of this revanchist vision.

For years, Netanyahu’s government transferred Qatari money directly to Hamas in a game of divide-and-conquer aimed at rendering a Palestinian state stillborn. Back in 2019, the prime minister bragged to supporters that anyone against Palestinian statehood should back his cash-for-Hamas scheme in order to keep the PA-administered parts of the West Bank separated from Gaza. That strategy blew up with tragic results four years later.

France, by contrast, is explicitly repudiating both Hamas’s bloody one-state absolutism and reckless Israeli expansionism. In announcing recognition, the French Foreign Ministry pointed to the PA, Hamas’s archnemesis in Palestinian politics,

which has come out strongly in favor of the two-state solution and peace, strongly condemned the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7, called for the release of the hostages, the disarmament of Hamas and its exclusion from the governance of Gaza.

When a future Palestinian ambassador presents their credentials at the Elysee Palace, it will be a representative of the PLO, not Hamas. The envoy in Paris will answer to the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership, which recognizes and cooperates with Israel.

Meanwhile, Paris’s diplomacy has put the Arab states on the record calling for Hamas’s disarmament and an end to the group’s terror regime in Gaza—while appealing to end the ongoing war and move toward two states. In a communique drafted in New York at the end of July, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, and other governments declared:

In the context of ending the war in Gaza, Hamas must end its rule in Gaza and hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.

This was the first time Arab governments collectively made such a commitment, and a dramatic step like French recognition of Palestine helped to make it possible. It’s now on France to hold them to account, but it’s significant nonetheless.

In any event, the Israeli and American excuses don’t pass the smell test. Who outside the hasbara echo chamber believes that recognizing Palestine alongside Israel in borders that Hamas doesn’t accept, under Hamas’s PA rivals, is somehow a reward for Hamas?

A diplomatic lifeline to Israel

Finally, French recognition of Palestine is actually a diplomatic lifeline to Israel.

Israel’s tenuous status as a democracy rests on a political and legal fiction that the West Bank is not a part of Israel; that the area and those who live there are simply under temporary occupation pending a future peace agreement.

This rhetorical sleight of hand confers Israel legitimacy and normalcy, as well as lucrative relationships throughout the Free World. While some may dismiss France as a bit player in international affairs, Europe is Israel’s largest trading partner, and the EU-Israel Association Agreement clearly states that “Relations between the Parties [...] shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles.”

The notion that the West Bank is not functionally a part of Israel contravenes both reality and Israel’s stated position on the matter. Just last week, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, passed a resolution calling for formal sovereignty over the occupied territory. Of the 13 million people under permanent Israeli control—as defined by Israel—about three million (more, if Gaza is annexed) lack political and civil rights. There is a word for that, and it isn’t democracy.

It’s not difficult to imagine that a couple of years along this current trajectory, the debate in Western capitals will not be about recognizing Palestine and Israel, but whether to recognize Palestine or Israel. Imperfect as the two-state formula is, a solution predicated on and is infinitely less complicated, more peaceful, and more just than one based on either or. In recognizing Palestine alongside Israel, Macron is bucking the maximalism of both Hamas and the Israeli government.

France faces significant headwinds in insisting that Israel and Palestine are neighboring and not overlapping. But recognizing Palestine may be just what’s needed to jolt the world out of incrementalism and remind us that the pre-war situation was not normal. France was right to take this step, and other countries should follow their example.

Why do we do debates at The Next Move? Read this note from RDI founder and chairman Garry Kasparov.

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