Speaking at the New York UN Conference on the Two-State Solution, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on 22 September that his country now recognizes the state of Palestine. He was loudly applauded by the diplomats present.

Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta and Monaco joined France in this recognition.

A total of 156 states have already recognized the state of Palestine – more than half of them are EU members.

However, such recognition will have only limited effects as long as Israel, the occupying Power, does not recognize it. Above all, the recognition of this state is a way of not helping the Palestinian population during the ongoing genocide.

☞ The project for the recognition of a Palestinian state was formulated in 1936 by the British Foreign Office. It was a question of preserving the interests of the British Empire by partitioning Mandatory Palestine into an Arab side and a Jewish side, on the model of what would be achieved in India with India proper and Pakistan: to maintain London’s indispensable presence through the division of the country.

In India, the British had declared the secular leader of independence, Aurobindo Gosh, "public enemy No. 1 of the Empire" and favored the rise to power of both Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, a supporter of the caste system and a Hindu India, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, a supporter of a Muslim state. In three days, independence caused 2 million deaths. Subsequently, many Indian and Pakistani leaders tried to renew ties, but each time, terrorist groups derailed the negotiations.

In Mandatory Palestine, the British dismissed secular leaders and favored the rise of both the revisionist Zionists and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In this region of the world, too, peace has been impossible for eighty years.

☞ On March 4, 1982, French President François Mitterrand gave a historic speech in the Israeli Knesset [parliament]. In it, he stated that the right of peoples to self-determination should also apply to the Palestinians on the condition that they recognize Israel’s right to exist. It was not about creating a second state next to Israel, but about leaving open the United Nations proposal for a single binational state.

☞ On 13 September 1993, Israel and the Palestinian Authority signed the Oslo Accords providing for the recognition of the State of Palestine. They have never been fully implemented, especially since, on November 4, 1995, Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a revisionist Zionist, a follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

☞ The French president’s decision is a "fait du prince". There has been no government in France since the resignation of [former Prime Minister] François Bayrou and his team and 72% of French people are hostile to the creation of a Palestinian state.

☞ The Saudi co-presidency was held by Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud and not by Prime Minister and Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman (MBS). At the last moment, Saudi Arabia no longer considered it useful to be represented at the level of its head of government.

This is the editorial from our paywalled "Voltaire, international newsletter", n°144. For more information, do not hesitate to subscribe: 500€ per year.

Translation
Gregor Fröhlich