France Is Wrong to Recognize Palestine
The international community needs to pressure the chief culprit in the Israel-Gaza conflict: Hamas.
This article is part of a debate from The Next Move. Uriel Epshtein argues that France and other countries are taking a flawed approach to peace by granting recognition to Palestine. After you read his piece, check out Evan Gottesman’s article, which makes the case for recognizing Palestine—and let us know where you land in the debate!
Uriel Epshtein is the CEO of the Renew Democracy Initiative.
Starting with France, Western countries are lining up to recognize the State of Palestine. The French, and the nations following their lead, are implicitly acting in response to the terrible situation in Gaza while Great Britain is explicitly tying recognition to a ceasefire.
The French initiative and the subsequent parade of recognition announcements are all in line with the laudable goal of a two-state solution. Even after the October 7 attacks, an outcome where the two peoples enjoy peace, security, and self-determination remains the only viable answer to a century of conflict. But the tactic of preemptive recognition is flawed because it doesn’t put pressure where it belongs: Hamas, and its enablers in Qatar.
This is not to ignore the share of the blame that belongs to Natenyahu’s government. However justified Israel’s response to the horror of October 7 was, without a clear and realistic end, its military campaign has clearly crossed into excess. And Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition has used the war in Gaza as cover to deepen settlements in the West Bank. But recognizing Palestine will not create new facts on the ground that address those problems. It will not hasten an end to the fighting nor uproot settlements.
Meanwhile, Hamas violently rejects the very existence of the State of Israel in any borders. Hamas started the war on October 7, 2023 and therefore cannot be a part of any future solution. Before an independent Palestinian state can be conceived, Hamas must be thoroughly dismantled. The Palestinian state being recognized by France is the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)/Palestinian Authority (PA), but its record shows it is unprepared to govern. Recognition is something that usually comes at the end of the state-building process; taking that step prematurely deprives the international community of future leverage. In short, it risks an outcome that’s half-baked, with disastrous results for Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Misplaced pressure
If the goal is to end the war in Gaza and arrest the development of new settlements in the West Bank, then pressure must be applied even-handedly. There is more than one party to this conflict.
On the one side, there is Israel. As I’ve mentioned, Israel does shoulder responsibility for the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. While its war in the aftermath of Hamas’s attacks on October 7 was clearly a defensive one, how a free nation defends itself matters. Just because Hamas puts civilians in harm’s way and seeks to maximize the civilian death toll, does not mean Israel should help them achieve this goal.
Unlike the war in Gaza, many Israeli settlements in the West Bank have no security justification, and expansionist plans under discussion for the Gaza Strip are an insult to the memory of Hamas’s victims. Netanyahu has failed to produce a day-after proposal with clear objectives that could realistically be achieved. Benny Gantz resigned as Israel’s defense minister because Bibi lacked an endgame. All of that is worthy of condemnation.
But recognizing Palestine today implicitly rewards Hamas while pressuring one side—Israel.
We are only having this conversation because of actions taken by Hamas, a terrorist group. Its strategy is literally to double down on the suffering of the Palestinian people, holding not only kidnapped Israelis, but the entire population of Gaza as its hostages. Nearly every government, except the Iranian regime and perhaps the Russians, would like to see Hamas removed from the Palestinian political scene in any postwar scenario (one good outcome of recent French diplomacy is getting the Arab governments to say as much—though I question whether they’ll follow through on this stance).
Pressuring Hamas is more difficult than pressuring Israel. However, Hamas doesn’t act alone—it has enablers, Qatar chief among them.
Qatar actually signed on to France’s late July statement on Palestinian statehood recognition, which called for disarming Hamas and removing the group from Gaza. But we shouldn’t necessarily take their signature on this statement at face value. In 2024, Qatar reportedly kicked the Hamas leadership out of Doha—yet failed to close the terrorist group’s office there. As recently as this July, Hamas operatives apparently remained in the Qatari capital.
More absurdly still, Qatar is a formal partner of the United States, boasting the official status of Major Non-NATO Ally. It seems a strange sort of cognitive dissonance which would lead us to label a nation harboring terrorists as one of our allies. And yet, CENTCOM, one of the US military’s eleven unified combatant commands, has its forward headquarters at an airbase in Qatar. Republican and Democratic presidents alike seem to treat the Qataris with kid gloves. Some even accept lavish gifts in the form of Boeing 747s from them.
It’s all well and good to pressure the Israeli government when it goes too far. Still, it defies credulity for the US to continue to give the royal treatment to a country that hosts the primary culprits in the most destructive episode in Israeli-Palestinian history. And if the US, which has actual leverage with Qatar, can’t hold the tiny Gulf monarchy to account, then France is unlikely to enforce its verbal commitments to neutralize Hamas.
Unprepared for statehood
The natural rejoinder to these points is that France, Canada, the UK, and others aren’t recognizing Hamas. They’re recognizing the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.
Fair enough. But the PA’s record barely only looks acceptable when compared against Hamas’s, and the bar couldn’t get much lower than that. The Palestinian Authority is corrupt and despotic. France and many of the other countries now recognizing Palestine have called for elections, likely knowing that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will never hold a vote because he will lose. That leads us to another problem: the PA and its octogenarian ruler are deeply unpopular. According to Palestinian political analyst Ghaith al-Omari, 87% of West Bank and Gaza Palestinians see the PA as corrupt. 78% want Abbas to step down.
It took the aging Palestinian leader months to even partially condemn the October 7 massacre. He is only offering a full-throated rebuke now because it will advance his international standing with symbolic statehood recognition.
In our imperfect world, the PLO/PA is the best partner Israel has for peace, but that doesn’t mean this is a regime ready for statehood (and since Abbas is two decades into a four-year term, I use the word “regime” with intention). Offering recognition now provides Abbas and his associates no incentive to make any of the tough decisions required to improve their capacity to govern. They can enjoy flashy ribbon-cutting ceremonies at embassies in Paris and Ottawa while their popularity plummets at home and their institutions continue to decay.
An alternative
I’m aware that up until this point, I’ve offered a lot of “no’s.” No, recognizing Palestinian statehood is not the right call now. No, Israel is not solely responsible for the current situation. No, the Palestinian Authority is not prepared to govern.
So we need to talk about the alternative.
First, there has to be pressure on Hamas via Qatar. While other countries get an A for effort for trying to fill the gap left by Donald Trump’s erratic behavior, there’s no alternative to American leadership here. Doha has a special relationship with the United States, and the US needs to hold the party that started the war to account.
Next, in calling for recognition of Palestine, France and its European and Arab state allies have compiled a list of sensible objectives. The statement they released in New York this past week affirmed the need for Hamas’s disarmament and political isolation. It called for the PA to continue good governance reforms and remove dehumanization and incitement from Palestinian school curricula.
The problem is that in kicking things off with recognition of Palestine, France put the cart before the horse. So a sensible policy might actually offer the Palestinians statehood recognition—but only after they implement these necessary reforms. As it stands, Emmanuel Macron is highly unlikely to withdraw recognition once it’s granted.
As for Bibi’s obstinance and shortsightedness, Western and Arab governments can develop their own day after plan if officials in Jerusalem can’t or won’t. Of course, they can’t force Israel to implement their ideas, but having a tangible alternative can both highlight Israeli government rejectionism and ratchet up domestic pressure on Netanyahu if a war-weary public rallies around a workable plan.
The impulse behind recognizing Palestinian statehood is understandable. But as proposed by France, recognition is impracticable, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict defies quick fixes. Creative diplomacy will be required to turn things around. Throwing a sign on a building in the 15th arrondissement and calling it the embassy of the “State of Palestine” won’t cut it.
Why do we do debates at The Next Move? Read this note from RDI founder and chairman Garry Kasparov.
Check out the other side of the debate:
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.
To understand Isreal/ Palestine consider what we know about post-colonialism.
Try starting here:
What Does “Decolonization” Mean in the Context of Gaza?
On The Media - WNYC - Podcast, Interview with Iyad el-Baghdadi , Palestinian human rights activist, writer , professor & Author.
LINK: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/what-it-means-decolonize-palestine-on-the-media
"Colonialism comes in two flavors. In extractive colonialism, the objective is to extract wealth from the land and the people's labor, who you need to keep under control. In settler colonialism, the colonizer wants the land without the people, and that better describes Palestine. The colonizer wants the land for expansion by displacing locals. The tools are usually more brutal, because they don't need the people.
The word "decolonization". is often confused with anti-colonial. But not every anti-colonial movement is really de-colonial. Anti-colonial simply means being opposed to the presence of a colonizer. But Anti-colonial movements can follow some of the same behavioral patterns as colonizers, or have a worldview built on colonial concepts. Decolonization, isn't about removing anyone, it's about removing the supremacy of a group over another, so there's equal citizens…. It cant erase past inequities, but it's the light that can lead us forward to a different future.
There are two main models for ending settler colonialism, and understanding them is key to Palestine. There's the Algerian and South African models, and both have been applied to Palestine. The model followed by the Algerians was a military approach, that made the colony unlivable, until the occupiers left. In the South Africa model, colonialism was resolved by creating a democracy that included both the previously colonized and the colonizers.
Sharon's Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, referred to both models when in 2005 when Israel withdrew from Gaza. Olmert said. "More and more Palestinians are uninterested in a negotiated two-state solution because they want to change the essence of the conflict from an Algerian paradigm to a South African one... From a struggle against occupation to a struggle for one man, one vote. Since that's a cleaner and more popular struggle, and ultimately a more powerful one. But for Israel it would also mean the end of the Jewish state."
He's basically saying Palestinian statehood is a lethal threat to the ethno-national Jewishness of the state. The pre-October 7th reality wasn't something that Israel just stumbled into. It was a conscious choice, made and sustained by two generations of Israeli politicians. Olmert said the importance of them pulling out of Gaza, was that would let them freeze the peace process. So that the possibility of Palestinian statehood was put off indefinitely .
Because the Algerians got the French to leave, Palestinians thought they should do the same, and fight militarily till the israelis leave - some also felt jewish israel had no right to exist. But French-Algeria isn't like Israel for many reasons. For one, because the French had France to go back to. Also the French were always a minority, who never made up more than 20% of the population. But In the case of Israel/Palestine, the population is roughly half and half. And Israel was also largely founded by Holocaust survivors, escaping from a millennium of antisemitism and persecution, which makes this a very different psychological dynamic. And their historic ethnic religious roots were also here.
Many who are “pro-Palestinian” also think of it now as still being like Israel in 1948. Back then israel was mostly European jewish white settlers. But more than 60% of Israelis today are now descended from Middle Eastern Jews. So the idea that it’s still a white settler colony, is just not true.
Decolonization doesn't mean removing people but removing domination, that's why the South African model is so helpful, because it is rooted in values such as equality, coexistence, humanity, and integration. in this case that also fits the demographic reality, sInce the total population is pretty evenly split between palestinian and Jewish people, so the premise of equality is more applicable here.
Basically, these are two peoples locked in a cycle of trauma, who keep traumatizing each other more. We can't forget our humanity when we approach that problem.... The objective cant simply be to defeat Israel or to protect it or liberate Palestine. Instead we have to create a situation that both people can live in. We also have to think in generational terms. Palestinians and Israelis both say "how can we live with these people after what they have done?" But they are simply going to have to. Babies will be born tomorrow between the river and the sea, some Jewish, and some Palestinian. We have to ask what we want for them 20 or 30 years from now? Do we still want them to be doing what we're doing right now? If not then then the question must be how to change this?
The current israeli goverment's solution seems to be to completely subjegate the palestinian population and deny them the basic rights that they themselves were built on: the right to rule of law, equality before law political and economic freedoms
Many Palestinians think of "liberation" as a somehow reversing "The 1948 Nakba". But Edward Said, the prominent Palestinian American scholar, warned that obsession with the past will doom any possible progress. A de-colonial vision is a job for entrepreneurs and for architects, not for nihilists. We have to have the imagination to build a movement premised on equality, and humanity. People may think there is no future in which the Jewish and Palestinian populations live peacefuly together, but that is exactly why we have to double down on that idea! because Democracy and humanity is the only way out of the current problems.
Is the Algerian model even be possible ? it would mean endless rivers of blood and destruction. As a Palestinian, I want a country my children and grandchildren can live in with freedom and dignity, Not a country without Jews. And that means not just liberating Palestinians but also liberating Israelis from horrid conditions . It's about humanizing both the colonizer and the colonized. because Colonialism isn't just brutal to those colonized, but also to the soul of the colonizer. A decolonial movement can be led by the colonized, but it has to build for the future of both peoples.
There is one paradigm of partition, segregation and domination which is premised on an idea of ethnic nationalism. There's another paradigm of integration, equality and coexistence, which I think is the only realistic way forward.
The path in front of us now, post-October 7th, is one of unending crisis, in which anything Israelis get, they get by taking away from Palestinians, and anything Palestinians get, they would have to take from Israelis. That nihilist strategy is a reflection of the cycle of trauma we've become locked into. the Current politicians, and movements who are locked in this old way of thinking, are only going to give us is more of the same. More bloodshed, more conflict, violence, more war... and palestinians being starved, and bombed, with their backs to the wall, feel like the only thing they can do is to fight back.
We have two possible paths. but one one is actually blocked by a future of just endless destruction. The other path is about integration and is inter-generational and it's going to be very hard, and take a lot of work, but at least that way can get us someplace.While the ideal of democratic self governance still has massive appeal.
this current phase of israel and palestine's history is defined by ethno-nationalism, but thats just one temporary chapter. The history of the Jewish people is a very long well documented and very proud history. I want Jewish people to thrive in the Middle East, in their native region, for a very long time.
Maybe the way to insure that is to give up this idea of ethno-nationalism, and instead to accept each other without questioning who belongs and who doesn't anymore... Such a change will take generations, but the truth is we have a very long collective history in the middle east, with many phases, and much time ahead of us.
The problem of a democracy having a population imbalance can be adressed in many ways.
( Israeli jews now have an average birthrate of 2. 1 children, while palestinians now only average 2.6 children). if the population grows too lopsided there are institutional methods to insure equal and just reprisentation for all, and a fair share of economic participation… one obvious element of that solution creating a "confederation" structure, comprised of many regional authorities, similar to how The united states works. We forget the US founding fathers also had to create a fair system which could balance and be supported by people of very opposing beleifs and faiths... & Particularly the opposition those who opposed or beleived in slavery. What makes us think todays problems in israel/Palestine are any more difficult ? Its almost the same problem , and calls for a similar solution
Any solutions should also consider the role of "DEI" - diversity and inclusion. The 2024 Nobel prize for economics went to “studies of how institutions structure effect a nation's prosperity” That research clearly showed 'inclusive' democratic institutions are consistently more economically successful, and politically stable. this particularly applies to all studies of "post colonial" structures…. "Inclusive" economics, and political, institutions give incentives for talent and creativity, and invariably generated more lasting social stability, primarily due to how they help to generate greater and more widespread wealth, and shared prosperity".
By engaging with Hamas and only with Hamas -whether through cash for Hamas or similar efforts to exclude the Palestinian authority and his overwhelming need for Hamas to justify hanging on to his political office and avoid prosecution, Mr. Netanyahu has put Hamas front and center. This has blinded his supporters to the alternatives such as the 2-state proposal that France has championed that offer Israel a way out of the bind it finds itself in. Tunnel vision when all that's needed is to let in light and SEE.