A French folly most foul
Last week, the streets of Manhattan were jam packed. Not because of a Taylor Swift concert or some “New-Years-Eve-in-September” type of celebration, but because of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting. Every year, the UN calls all of its member states together in a largely performative series of speeches, meetings, and resolutions. Frankly, the only memorable UN moment of the past 20 years (for me anyway) was Muammar Gaddafi’s 96-minute long tirade in front of the entire general assembly. However, this UNGA session was preempted by a unique and head scratching development.
In the weeks leading up to this year’s UNGA session however, diplomatic drama had already unfolded. Starting in July and beginning with the United Kingdom, western nations began to announce their intention to recognize a “Palestinian state.” Among those standing with the UK on this issue were Canada, Portugal, Australia, and France. Last week, all five nations formally recognized a Palestinian state. Each of these country’s leaders can be mocked and criticized for such a bizarre and shortsighted form of diplomatic virtue signaling. While prime ministers Mark Carney and Keir Starmer (of Canada and the UK respectively) probably deserve their own op-ed, I will instead focus on the laughably unpopular and feckless French President Emmanuel Macron. Macron has drawn my ire on this issue because of a meaningless and mealy-mouthed interview he gave to Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation recently.
The interview can be watched and read in the previous link but I will highlight some of the delusions here. First, Macron insinuated that this move “is the only way to provide a political solution to a situation which has to stop.” When pressed by Brennan why a hostage release wouldn’t be a precondition for state recognition, Macron moronically assures her that “this [hostage release] is a clear condition before we will open an embassy.” Think about this for a second: The president of France believes that diplomatic recognition of the Palestinians should come before a hostage release, thus allowing Hamas to keep their greatest bargaining chips. But Macron assures us that this is sensical because, hey, the Palestinians will not be able to lease any real estate in Paris while the hostages remain under Hamas’ thumb.
But Macron assures us in his interview that Hamas can be separated from the people of Gaza and the Palestinians as a whole. But in the same breath, he admits that the popularity of Hamas is higher than it ever has been! Macron continues, “We have to recognize that the Palestinian Authority has to be reformed. The governance is not satisfactory today. We need a new — you have a new — we need a new Palestinian Authority.” Macron’s idea here is that an effective Palestinian State can be formed (more on that later) at the total exclusion of Hamas and the sole inclusion of the Palestinian Authority (PA). This despite Hamas continuing to enjoy more support (as of May 2025) over the PA amongst Palestinians. By recognizing statehood while refusing to let a popular terror party participate in the state’s government Macron and his compatriots are trying to avoid the mistake made by the Bush administration in 2006’s Gaza elections. But this flies in the face of the idea of Palestinian sovereignty which Macron seems to want so bad. This is even further muddied by Macron’s suggestion that this new state would have “security forces with the vetting process by Israel.” So who controls the conduct of this Palestinian State? The Israelis? The PA? Hamas under a different name? How does one get from an alleged “genocide” committed by Israel to the Palestinians agreeing to have the Knesset approve of how the Palestinians conduct their internal security? Macron is running a 1990s Oslo playbook in the midst of an entirely changed Middle East landscape.
Macron goes onto suggest that in order to establish a transitional government (once again inexplicably excluding Hamas) in Gaza, an “international force” with a UN “mandate” would need to be deployed to the region. Macron says that under this UN force, “Hamas will be disarmed, dismantled, with some key people to leave Gaza and some other [sic] to be deradicalized, and the weapons to be taken.” Wow! Sounds great! When have UN peacekeepers succeeded at such a task? Somalia? Bosnia? Rwanda? Congo? The answer is none of the previous quagmires listed. What makes this situation different? How long do the Europeans (all of whose militaries have shrunk since the UN actions of the 1990s) stay situated in Gaza as their troops get picked off by snipers and improvised explosive devices? How long before UK squaddies and French Legionnaires call on America or (more ironically) Israel for help?
Lastly, all of this is fantasyland-level thinking because there is no clear-cut Palestinian state to be constructed now. There are no defined borders. There is no consensus on which political party (of which there are many) speaks for the Palestinians. The Hamas-PA/Fatah feud persists, Hamas is not defeated, hostages are still being held, and there is still no consensus on what a “right of return” would mean to a Palestinian state vis-à-vis Israel.
The only way that I can explain Macron’s move here is that he is a deeply unpopular head of state whose National Assembly continues to churn out a revolving door of prime ministers. Perhaps this is a way for Macron to curry favor with the leftist parties of the National Assembly as well as his country’s significant Muslim population. But this declaration does not actually change anything. If anything, if Secretary of State Marco Rubio is to be believed, “”The minute − the day − that the French announced the [intent to recognize a Palestinian State], that day, Hamas walked away from the negotiating table,” thus ensuring a prolonging of the war in Gaza.
Hats off to Macron and his peers in Ottawa, Canberra, London, and Lisbon. A meaningless and futile gesture that achieved little was successfully put on display this week. Not only did they manage to put the cart before the horse on this one, but the stirrups, saddle, and horseshoes as well.
Jim Pomeroy, raised in Bucks County and a former congressional aide, works in higher education. He is the author of Alliances & Armor: Communist Diplomacy and Armored Warfare during the War in Vietnam.
