France Plans June Recognition Palestine If Arabs Recognize Israel
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
PARIS/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – French President Emmanuel Macron has suggested a road to peace in the Middle East, saying his nation could recognize a Palestinian state in June if “in turn” countries in the Middle East “recognize” the state of Israel.
“We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,” Macron, who this week visited Egypt, told France 5 television.
“Our aim is to chair this conference with Saudi Arabia in June, where we could finalize this movement of mutual recognition [of a Palestinian state] 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 recognize Israel in turn, which many of them do not do,” Macron stressed.
He suggested he could make the move at a United Nations conference in New York in June on settling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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 explained.
SUMMIT TALKS
Macron spoke Wednesday after holding summit talks in Egypt with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
The Palestinian Authority welcomed his comments as “a step in the right direction.”
France’s recognition of Palestinian statehood “would be a step in the right direction in line with safeguarding the rights of the Palestinian people and the two-state solution,” added Palestinian Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Varsen Aghabekian Shahin.
France has long supported a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including after the October 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel that Israeli authorities say killed 1,200 people.
Critics claim that formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a significant policy switch and risk tensions with Israel, which insists such moves by foreign states “are premature.”
However, France seems to believe that the related recognition by numerous Arab states of Israel would lead to peace in Jerusalem and beyond.
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