UNITED NATIONS (AP) — As the Gaza war rages on, France recognized Palestinian statehood on Monday at the start of a high-profile meeting at the United Nations aimed at galvanizing support for a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict. More nations are expected to follow, in defiance of Israel and the United States.
French President Emmanuel Macron's announcement in the U.N. General Assembly hall received loud applause from the more than 140 leaders in attendance. The Palestinian delegation, including its U.N. ambassador, Riyad Mansour, could be seen standing and applauding as the declaration was made.
“True to the historic commitment of my country to the Middle East, to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians, this is why I declare that today, France recognizes the state of Palestine,” Macron said.
Andorra, Belgium, Luxembourg, Malta, and Monaco also announced or confirmed their recognition of a Palestinian state, a day after the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Portugal did. Germany, Italy and Japan took part in the conference but did not recognize such a state.
The meeting and expanded recognition of Palestinian statehood are expected to have little if any actual impact on the ground, where Israel is waging another major offensive in the Gaza Strip and expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank.
U.N. secretary-general Antonio Guterres said “statehood for the Palestinians is a right, not a reward." That appeared to push back against the Israeli government, which says recognizing statehood rewards Hamas after its Oct. 7 attack that set off the war in Gaza two years ago.
Abbas says ‘enough violence and war’
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, forced to address the meeting by video after the U.S. revoked his visa, again condemned the “killing and detention of civilians, including Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7, 2023.”
He said the Palestinian Authority is establishing a new social welfare system after abolishing payments to the families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned by Israel, a decision taken months ago that had been a longstanding demand from Israel and the U.S.
Addressing the Israeli people, he said “enough violence and war,” and he wished Jews around the world a happy new year on the occasion of Rosh Hashana.
Abbas’ internationally recognized Palestinian Authority is led by rivals of Hamas and administers parts of the West Bank. It recognizes Israel, cooperates with it on security matters, and is committed to a two-state solution. Israel accuses the Palestinian Authority of incitement to militancy and has ruled out any role for it in postwar Gaza. Many Palestinians view the leadership in the West Bank as corrupt and increasingly autocratic.
International community widely backs a Palestinian state
Around three-fourths of the 193-member United Nations recognizes Palestine, but major Western nations had until recently declined to, saying one could only come about through negotiations with Israel.
Palestinians have welcomed the moves toward recognition, hoping they might someday lead to independence. “This is a beginning, or a glimmer of hope, for the Palestinian people,” Fawzi Nour al-Deen said Sunday as he held a bag on his head, joining thousands of people fleeing south from Gaza City. “We are a people who deserve to have a state.”
The creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — territories seized by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war — is widely seen internationally as the only way to resolve the conflict, which began more than a century before Hamas' Oct. 7 attack.
Israeli government is opposed to statehood
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government opposed Palestinian statehood even before the war and now says such a move would reward Hamas, the militant group that still controls parts of Gaza. He has hinted Israel might take unilateral steps in response, including annexing parts of the West Bank, which would put a viable Palestinian state even further out of reach.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric brushed off such threats, saying efforts to bring about a two-state solution should continue regardless of Israel's actions. “I think we have to be determined in achieving the goal that we want to achieve, and we cannot be distracted by threats and intimidation,” he said.
Netanyahu is under pressure from his far-right coalition to move ahead with annexation, but the United Arab Emirates — the driving force behind the 2020 Abraham Accords, in which the UAE and three other Arab states forged ties with Israel — has called it a "red line," without saying how it could affect the two countries' now close ties.
Netanyahu said he would decide on Israel's response to the Palestinian statehood push after meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House next week, their fourth meeting since Trump returned to office. The Israeli leader is set to address world leaders at the U.N. on Friday.
The Trump administration is also opposed to growing recognition of a Palestinian state and blames it for the derailment of ceasefire talks with Hamas. Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, walked away from the talks in July, and earlier this month an Israeli strike targeted Hamas negotiators in Qatar, a key mediator.
The Palestinians are politically fragmented
France and Saudi Arabia have advanced a phased plan in which a reformed Palestinian Authority would eventually govern the West Bank and Gaza with international assistance. It was overwhelmingly supported by the General Assembly on Sept. 12 by a vote of 142-10. Twelve members abstained.
Hamas, which won the last Palestinian national elections in 2006, has at times hinted it might accept a state on the 1967 lines but remains formally committed to a Palestinian state in all of the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, including Israel.
Israelis and Palestinians held U.S.-brokered peace talks beginning in the early 1990s, but those efforts repeatedly stalled because of outbreaks of violence and Israel's expansion of settlements aimed at cementing its control over the West Bank. There have been no substantive peace talks since Netanyahu returned to office in 2009.
Advocates of the two-state solution say that without a Palestinian state, Israel will have to decide between the status quo, in which millions of Palestinians live under military occupation without equal rights, or a binational state that might not have a Jewish majority.
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Krauss reported from Ottawa, Ontario.
