Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, has denounced French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent announcement that Paris could recognise a Palestinian state by June, saying it would be a “prize” for terrorism.
“A unilateral recognition of a fictional Palestinian state, by any country, in the reality that we all know, will be a prize for terror and a boost for Hamas,” Saar said on X late on Wednesday.
“These kind of actions will not bring peace, security and stability in our region closer — but the opposite: they only push them further away.”
Nearly 150 countries recognise a Palestinian state. In May 2024, Ireland, Norway and Spain announced recognition, followed by Slovenia in June, moves partly fuelled by condemnation of Israel’s bombing of Gaza that followed the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.
But France would be the most significant European power to recognise a Palestinian state, a move the United States has also long resisted but which proponents see as a necessary step to bringing stability to the region.
On Wednesday, Macron said France plans to recognise a Palestinian state within months and could make the move at a UN conference in New York in June.
“We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television.
Such a move would also make France the first permanent member of the United Nations Security Council to recognise a Palestinian state.
“Our aim is to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia in June, where we could finalise this movement of mutual recognition by several parties,” he added.
“I will do it because I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not do,” he added.
Such recognition would allow France “to be clear in our fight against those who deny Israel’s right to exist — which is the case with Iran — and to commit ourselves to collective security in the region,” he added.
France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including after the October 7, 2023 attack.
But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy switch and risk antagonising Israel which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.
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