At the presidential summer holiday residence, the Fort de Brégançon on France’s Mediterranean coast, where the presidential couple has been enjoying their vacation since Friday, August 1, Emmanuel Macron savored his diplomatic victory. Though he had struggled with doubt and worried about the possible reprisals Israel might foment behind the scenes, had he not ultimately been right to take the plunge? On July 24, the French president announced that he would recognize the State of Palestine in September, during the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Macron described his promise, which he set out in a letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as a “moral duty,” at a time when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been orchestrating famine in the Gaza Strip and accelerating the annexation of the West Bank.
France, powerless to stop the conflict in Gaza, which began after Hamas committed massacres on October 7, 2023, presented its political initiative as a path to peace, intended to revive the two-state solution that Netanyahu and his far-right ministers have rejected. Unsurprisingly, the decision angered Israel and displeased the United States, its closest ally. France had good reason to fear becoming isolated on the international stage.
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