https://arab.news/nad4a
- More than 145 countries already recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe
PARIS: A moment of truth: That’s how French President Emmanuel Macron sees the recognition of a Palestinian state by France and other Western nations, with the hope to make it a landmark step in his push for peace in the Middle East as the devastating war in Gaza continues.
Macron is to formally declare France’s recognition of a Palestinian state on Monday at a UN conference in New York, as the UN General Assembly starts.
“We have to recognize the legitimate right of the Palestinian people to have a state,” Macron said in an interview broadcast on Israeli television Channel 12.
“If you don’t give a political perspective, in fact, you just put them in the hands of those who are just proposing a security approach, an aggressive approach.”
Macron argues the move is the only way to bring peace and stability to the region as it puts back on the table a two-state solution, in which a Palestinian state would be created alongside Israel in most or all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.
More than 145 countries already recognize a Palestinian state, including more than a dozen in Europe. The UK, Canada, Australia, Portugal, Malta, Belgium, and Luxembourg, among others, are expected to follow Macron’s lead in recognizing Palestinian statehood in the coming days.
The move aims to prompt “tangible, irreversible progress within a time frame that allows for a return to the two-state solution,” according to a top French diplomat.
Macron announced his decision at the end of July, arguing there’s no time to wait.
“The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved,” he wrote on social platform X.
On Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noe Barrot tied Macron’s diplomatic efforts to the arrest of a key Palestinian suspect in a 1982 terror attack in Paris, adding that the recognition of a Palestinian state “will allow us to seek extradition.”
President Macron welcomed the arrest in the occupied West Bank, calling it the result of “excellent cooperation” with the Palestinian Authority.
The suspect, Hicham Harb, 70, is accused of overseeing the militants who stormed the Jo Goldenberg restaurant on Rue des Rosiers on Aug. 9, 1982.