Dozens of world leaders gathered at the UN on Monday to embrace a Palestinian state, a landmark diplomatic shift nearly two years into the Gaza war that faces fierce resistance from Israel and its close ally the US.
President Emmanuel Macron announced France would recognise Palestine statehood at a meeting he convened with Saudi Arabia, a milestone that could boost Palestinian morale but appeared unlikely to change much on the ground.
The most far-right government in Israel's history has declared there will be no Palestinian state as it pushes on with its fight against militant group Hamas in Gaza after the October 7 2023 attack on Israel that killed about 1,200 people.
Israel has drawn global condemnation over its military conduct in Gaza, where more than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to local health authorities. In recent weeks, Israel has begun a long-threatened ground assault on Gaza City with few prospects for a ceasefire.
“We must pave the way for peace,” Macron said at the start of the session at the UN in New York.
“We must do everything within our power to preserve the very possibility of a two-state solution, Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security,” he said before announcing the diplomatic move and drawing lengthy applause from the audience.
Israel has said such moves will undermine the prospects of a peaceful end to the conflict.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres were among those who also spoke during the event.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose leftist government recognised the state of Palestine in 2024, told Reuters in an interview on Monday the recent recognition moves were very important.
“You have two countries from the security council, the UK and France, recognising the state of Palestine, and within Western society there's a large majority nowadays of countries that recognise (the) Palestine state,” he said.
Macron outlined a framework for a renewed Palestinian Authority under which France would open an embassy subject to factors such as reforms, a ceasefire and the release of all remaining hostages taken from Israel and held by Hamas in Gaza.
Ahead of this week's UN general assembly, Luxembourg, Malta, Belgium and Monaco on Monday also joined the more than three-quarters of the 193 UN members who recognise a Palestinian state.
Macron’s July pledge on recognition set the latest push in motion, with Britain, Canada and Australia later saying they would follow, and doing so on Sunday.
“We call on those who have not yet done so to follow suit,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said via video link as he was unable to attend the milestone events after being refused a US visa.
“We call for your support so Palestine becomes a fully fledged member of the UN,” he added, promising reforms and elections within a year of a ceasefire.
A delegation representing the state of Palestine has observer status at the UN but no voting rights. No matter how many countries recognise Palestinian independence, full UN membership would require approval by the security council, where the US has a veto.
The two-state solution was the bedrock of the US-backed peace process ushered in by the 1993 Oslo Accords. The process suffered heavy pushback from the two sides and has all but died.
No such negotiations over a two-state solution have been held since 2014.
The US and Israel boycotted Monday’s meeting. Israel’s UN ambassador Danny Danon said Israel would discuss how to respond to the announcements of recognition after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returns to Israel next week.
“The issues were supposed to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians in the future,” Danon told reporters ahead of the meeting. Netanyahu is scheduled to meet US President Donald Trump on September 29 in Washington before returning to Israel.
Netanyahu has rejected many calls to end the campaign until Hamas is destroyed and has said he will not recognise a Palestinian state.
The US has told other countries Palestinian recognition will create more problems.
Amid Israel's intensified Gaza offensive and escalating violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, there is a growing sense of urgency among some nations to act before the idea of a two-state solution vanishes forever.
While most European countries now recognise a Palestinian state, two of the continent's largest economies, Germany and Italy, have signalled they are unlikely to make such a move soon.
Germany, long a strong supporter of Israel because of its responsibility for the Holocaust, has grown more critical of Israeli policy while insisting recognition of a Palestinian state should come at the end of a political process to agree on a two-state solution. A German government spokesperson also said on Monday there must be no further annexations in Israeli-occupied territory.
Italy said recognising a Palestinian state could be “counterproductive”.
Israel is considering annexing part of the occupied West Bank as a possible response and specific bilateral measures against Paris, Israeli officials have said, even though the recognitions are expected to be largely symbolic.
Annexation could backfire and alienate such countries as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a global oil power and trade hub with wide diplomatic clout across the Middle East.
The UAE, the most prominent of the Arab states that normalised ties with Israel under the US-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020, has said such a move would undermine the spirit of the agreement.
The US has warned of possible consequences for those who take measures against Israel, including France as host of the summit.
Reuters
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