France is preparing to recognize the State of Palestine on Monday, September 22, in a speech delivered from the podium at the United Nations. This initiative, led by Emmanuel Macron, can only be met with approval. It is both coherent and principled. France has always advocated the two-state solution, a perspective that was established with the UN Partition Plan for Palestine, adopted in November 1947 under the auspices of the newly-founded organization.

This support aligns with a fundamental principle: All peoples’ rights to self-determination. Recognizing the State of Palestine means recognizing the existence of the Palestinian people, which is beyond dispute, and the existence of a territory on which their right to self-determination can be exercised.

This territory, made up of Gaza and the West Bank, has been conquered and forcefully colonized by Israel. The unacceptable nature of such conquest is another basic principle of international law, and it should not be subject to any exceptions, unless one is willing to embrace double standards based on shifting interests. This recognition also implies, in parallel, the recognition of Israel by countries that have so far refused to do so, and the definitive acceptance of Israel by the Palestinians themselves – an indispensable guarantee of Israel’s security.

Opponents of recognition for the State of Palestine, underpinned by these logical principle, have only been able to argue opportunistically. They have claimed that the timing is not right and that recognition should be postponed. They have argued that such recognition would represent a victory for Hamas, who is responsible for the October 7 massacres that sparked the cycle of wars that has engulfed the Near and Middle East.

The first argument is only tenable if one chooses to ignore what is happening today in Gaza and the West Bank. This escalation convinced Macron that France could no longer delay joining the overwhelming majority of United Nations member states in recognizing Palestine. It is worth recalling that these countries have long viewed recognition of the State of Palestine as an act of justice, one that could help end a conflict that has caused too much devastation.

Call for disarmament

The reality is that Israel does not merely repeatedly assert, through its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that there will never be a Palestinian state. The reality is that Israel is doing everything possible to prevent it, and is close to succeeding. The reality is that Israel’s solution to the Palestinian question has never been so clearly spelled out. It involves the destruction of Gaza, forcing as many of its inhabitants as possible into exile, displacing and confining Palestinians in the West Bank into the equivalent of bantustans (segregated territories in apartheid-era South Africa), and subjecting them to military, economic and humanitarian pressure aimed at making their departure inevitable.

The second argument is no more convincing. No one can rightly condemn Hamas for denying Israel’s right to exist while at the same time claiming that it would welcome an initiative that strongly reaffirms the State of Israel’s legitmacy. Moreover, the French initiative is accompanied by a call for Hamas to be disarmed and permanently sidelined, as the movement has been discredited by its barbarity and despotism.

Recognizing the State of Palestine sends a message to two peoples. It seeks to pull the stronger party, which has become stuck in its painful history, out of the illusion of omnipotence, and to maintain a glimmer of hope for the party that continues to suffer, in both Gaza and the West Bank. The concrete limitations of this initiative, in the face of Netanyahu’s hardline stance, which has been blindly supported by Donald Trump, are obvious. Yet, today, inaction amounts to a declaration of impotence and, ultimately, acquiescence to a deliberate project of ethnic cleansing.

France, finally, is not alone. It has succeeded in garnering support from Arab countries, whose backing is essential for Israel’s full integration into the Near and Middle East, and Western partners, who have remained immobile for too long. Recognizing the State of Palestine will not, of course, be enough to bring about peace. But refusing to do so would hasten the destruction of the two-state solution and guarantee an endless war.