NEW YORK: President Emmanuel Macron received a long standing ovation on Monday as he formally announced France’s recognition of the State of Palestine, calling it a “historic and necessary” step to end the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict and establish a durable peace in the Middle East.
Speaking at the High-Level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine, co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, he declared that “the time has come” to end the war in Gaza, free the remaining 48 Israeli hostages held by Hamas, and revive the two-state solution.
“We’ve gathered here because the time has come ... The time for peace has come because we’re just a few moments away from no longer being able to seize peace,” Macron said.
“There are hundreds of thousands of people who’ve been displaced, injured, famished, traumatized,” he added.
“Nothing justifies the ongoing war in Gaza. On the contrary, everything compels us to definitively end it.”
Macron again strongly condemned the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, calling it “the worst terrorist attack in Israeli history” and “an open wound for the Israeli soul and for our universal conscience.”
He also paid tribute to the 51 French citizens killed in the attack, and reaffirmed France’s unwavering support for Israel’s right to security and its fight against terrorism, including antisemitism. “Nothing, never, nowhere can justify having recourse to terrorism,” Macron said.
Invoking the 1947 UN Partition Plan, he emphasized that while the international community fulfilled its promise to establish a Jewish state, the parallel promise of a Palestinian state remains unfulfilled.
“This is a people who never says goodbye to anything,” he said, quoting Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. “A people with a strong history, roots and dignity.”
Macron added: “The recognition of the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people takes nothing away from the rights of the people of Israel.”
He reiterated that France’s recognition of Palestine is not meant to harm Israel but to support a political solution that allows both peoples to live side by side in peace and security.
“A life is a life,” he said repeatedly, recalling his encounters with both Israeli and Palestinian victims.
By recognizing Palestine, Macron joined a broader international movement. He confirmed that countries including Andorra, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Portugal, the UK and San Marino had also answered the call to recognize Palestinian statehood.
“This recognition is a defeat for Hamas,” Macron said. “It is a defeat for all those who ferment antisemitism, nurture anti-Zionist obsessions and who want the destruction of the State of Israel.”
France and Saudi Arabia presented a peace and security plan to the UN General Assembly, formally known as the New York Declaration which was adopted by a large majority.
The declaration outlines three core priorities: the immediate release of hostages and a ceasefire in Gaza, with Macron urging Israel not to obstruct ongoing efforts led by Qatar, Egypt and the US; the stabilization and reconstruction of Gaza through a transitional administration involving the Palestinian Authority and young Palestinians, backed by international partners to disarm Hamas; and comprehensive reform of Palestinian governance.
Macron said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had committed to disarming Hamas, excluding it from future governance, combating hate speech and renewing democratic institutions.
France pledged to monitor implementation closely, and expressed readiness to contribute to an international stabilization mission and support Palestinian security forces.
Macron emphasized that, together with EU partners, France’s future cooperation with Israel would be contingent on it ending the Gaza war and engaging in peace negotiations.
“It’s thanks to this path that we will get a State of Palestine, sovereign, independent and demilitarized, bringing together all of its territories, recognizing Israel and being recognized by Israel,” he said, urging Arab and Muslim states that have yet to recognize Israel to commit to doing so once a Palestinian state is established.
“Together, we will demonstrate dual recognition for the benefit of peace and security of all in the Middle East,” he added.
“The time has come to do justice to the Palestinian people, and thus to recognize the State of Palestine — a brotherly country, a neighbor in Gaza, in the West Bank and in Jerusalem.”
He added: “The time has come to cast out from these lands the vile face of terrorism and to forge peace.”
Quoting former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist for pursuing peace, Macron reminded the assembly: “‘I fought so long as there was no chance of peace.’ But today, there is such a chance. Today, here, 142 states are proposing this peace.”
Abbas condemned the Oct. 7 attack and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, and an end to Israeli settler terrorism and attacks against Islamic and Christian sites in Jerusalem.
He vowed that the State of Palestine would be the only legitimate entity to govern Gaza, excluding Hamas from any future role.
“Hamas and other factions must surrender their weapons to the Palestinian Authority,” he said. “What we want is one unified state without weapons, a state with one law and one legitimate security forces.”
Speaking via video link from Ramallah, Abbas addressed the Israeli people directly, saying: “Our future and yours hangs on peace. Enough violence and war. Our generations deserve to enjoy freedom and security. Let the people in our region live in durable peace and good neighborliness.”
He also wished Jews worldwide a good new year, and to “our patient Palestinian people in their homeland and everywhere, I would like to tell you that the dawn of freedom and liberty is coming, no doubt.”
Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa also formally announced his country’s recognition of Palestine amid loud plaudits.
“Portugal’s recognition of the State of Palestine is not an isolated gesture, but a continuation of a longstanding policy and a decisive contribution to the safeguarding of the two-state solution,” he said.
A day after Australia recognized Palestine as a state, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese lamented “the grim pattern over the years: opportunities not taken, compromises rejected, good faith betrayed, a cycle of violence that has crushed generations.”
He called for a “credible cooperative peace plan supporting recovery in Gaza and security for Israel.”
This plan must establish peaceful governance in Gaza and necessarily “exclude Hamas on the day after and every day after that,” he said.
In formally recognizing a Palestinian state, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney accused Israel of aiming to “prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state from ever being established.”
However, Canada is “under no illusions that this recognition is a panacea,” he said. “We take this action as part of a coordinated effort led by France and Saudi Arabia — a coordinated effort to provide the possibility of peace in a two-state solution.”
Carney added: “Recognizing the state of Palestine, led by the Palestinian Authority, empowers those who seek peaceful coexistence and the end of Hamas. It doesn’t legitimize terrorism.”
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said while the recognition of Palestine is urgent, it is all the more urgent that “there exists a Palestinian people in the state that we’re claiming to recognize.”
Palestinian people are being annihilated, he added, urging the international community “in the name of reason, in the name of international law and in the name of human dignity (to) stop this slaughter now.”
Sanchez said: “Today, we take a crucial step forward in calling for a two-state solution at this conference, but let us be lucidly clear, there is no solution possible when the population of one of those two states is the victim of a genocide.
“We are all well aware that the only hope that civilians in Gaza have is that of knowing that the world does not forget them, and this conference nurtures that hope. It is an act of moral rebellion and uprising against indifference and forgetfulness.
“Let us make this conference too a collective commitment to halting brutality and to paving the way for peace.”
