A fair number of countries have decided to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state (the U.N. can’t as it requires Security-Council approval, and the U.S. is on that council).  This has had little effect as simple declarations like this have no force in international law (see reference to Natasha Hausdorff below).

Now, however, another state has decided to recognize Palestine, and it’s an important one: France. For President Emmanuel Macron of France has decided to join the queue, and France’s recognition will have a lot more influence than those of other countries. It is a move guaranteed to further endanger the sovereignty and safety of Israel.  Yet whether one likes it or not, Israel was recognized by the UN as a sovereign Jewish state, and so it remains.

And yes, I can understand that people don’t like all the killing of Gazan civilians associated with the war between Israel and Hamas, but they seem to forget that Hamas can stop this war instantly by disarming, surrendering, and letting the hostages go.  But for some reason Americans seem to overlook Hamas’s war crimes and its tactic of conducting urban war in a way that guarantees the death of Gazan civilians, and have laid all the onus for the Gazan war on Israel.

One of those people appears to be Macron, who wrote the letter below to Mahmoud Abbas. The original letter from Macron to Abbas is below, and, weirdly, I cannot find an English translation. Instead, I’m forced to rely on an AI summary, which says this:

Recent news reports indicate that French President Emmanuel Macron sent a letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas confirming France’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state.

Based on these reports, the letter outlined several key points:

• Recognition of a Palestinian state: Macron confirmed France’s decision to recognize Palestine as a state, according to the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent. He stated he would formally announce this at the United Nations General Assembly in September, notes CBS News.
• Focus on a two-state solution: Macron reiterated that this recognition is consistent with France’s historical commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, according to The Economist.
• Need for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid: Macron emphasized the urgency of ending the war in Gaza and providing relief to the civilian population.
• Demilitarization of Hamas and rebuilding Gaza: He stated that the demilitarization of Hamas is key to securing and rebuilding Gaza.
• Viability and security of a Palestinian state: Macron wrote that it is essential to build the state of Palestine, ensure its viability, and enable it to contribute to regional security by accepting its demilitarization and fully recognizing Israel.

If you are fluent in French, or can find a translation of what’s below, by all means put it in the comments or send it to me:

Macron’s entire letter, though, is below in French:

Abbas, you may recall, was elected as President of Palestine and the Palestine National Authority in 2005 for a four-year term, but somehow that’s been extended to twenty years. He supports terrorism against Israel, and it was under his regime that the “pay for slay” program (or “Martyr’s Fund“), which reimburses Palestinians (and their families) for killing Jews, was put into practice. It is still in practice, and over 90% of Palestinians approve of it.

Hamas, of course, doesn’t recognize Abbas as President, and Gaza would never accept Abbas (or the Palestinian Authority) as a legitimate government.  This leads to two immediate questions:   where is the new state that Macron wants going to be located, given that Palestine is divided into Gaza and the West Bank? And who is going to run it?

These lead to a bigger third question:  why should we recognize a sovereign state unless everything is in place, and agreed on, for how that state is to be run and where its borders will be? As I mentioned yesterday, it’s jumping the gun to create a Palestinian state next to Israel until these questions are settled. Otherwise, Israel still faces existential threats. Although Macron in his letter calls for release of the hostages, a ceasefire, and the demilitarization of Hamas, these are not preconditions for his recognition of a Palestinian state. They are just what he wants, but he’s going to go ahead and recognize a Palestinian state whether or not these things are done. What kind of blockhead is this guy? He think he’s on the right side of history, but this gesture is performative, although it may be influential. As the NYT said:

It was not clear whether other members of the Group of 7 would follow the French example, although France indicated it hoped that would happen. Nor was it clear what territory France would recognize as comprising a Palestinian state.

“It’s a powerful symbol, but without really doing anything on the ground to change Palestinians’ plight,” Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said in an email message. “It’s largely virtue signaling.”

The best critique of offers like Macron’s comes from Paul Friesen’s site “Minority of One,” which you can access by clicking on the headline below. Friesen apparently read the letter in French and his translation is the basis of his critique.

You should read the whole post, but I’ll give a few excerpts, which I’ve indented (all bolding is Friesen’s):

The state with no coordinates?

Let’s start with the simplest geographical question: where is this Palestine Macron plans to recognize? The 1967 lines? Adjusted borders? A demilitarized Gaza under Mahmoud Abbas’ theoretical authority, which he hasn’t been able to exercise even over Ramallah’s traffic lights without Israeli security coordination?

No answer.

A state without borders is either a fantasy or a threat. Fantasy, because you can’t govern what you can’t locate. Threat, because ambiguity is always the friend of maximalism; it gives every faction the right to fill in the map with its preferred crayons—green flags for some, blood-red slogans for others.

Which government? The Cadaver or the Caliphate?

Recognition means recognizing something sovereign. In this case, sovereignty would need to be exercised by either:

1. The Palestinian Authority: A sclerotic bureaucracy funded by Western donors, dedicated to the moral pedagogy of “pay-for-slay,” where murderers’ families are salaried for their grief; or
2. Hamas: A jihadist organisation whose founding charter reads like a fever dream of medieval Jew-hatred fleshed out by Iranian steel, Qatari cash, and Western indulgence.

Macron writes to Abbas as if the PA can govern Gaza by decree. He writes about demilitarizing Hamas as if it’s a customs offence. He speaks of elections in 2026 as if the militant factions will queue politely and accept the result. This is not policy; it is therapeutic prose—designed to soothe the conscience of a continent that outsourced its moral courage to metaphors.

I can’t imagine anybody taking issue with the bit above.  Hamas will never voluntarily demilitarize (remember, it’s sworn to destroy Israel), nor will it accept the Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza.

. . . The Gaza Experiment: a controlled study in delusion

Gaza already answered the question Macron refuses to ask. In 2005, Israel uprooted every Jew, dismantled every settlement, and even removed the dead. Gaza became a laboratory. The reagents: international aid, Israeli withdrawal, and Palestinian self-rule. The result: rockets, tunnels, human shields, and ultimately the largest pogrom against Jews since the Holocaust. The experiment ran for eighteen years. The conclusion writes itself.

Unilateral gestures reward unilateral violence. Recognition without prior disarmament and constitutional guarantees converts terror into diplomacy. Europe calls it “statehood”; the region experiences it as war.

“147 countries have recognized palestine.” And then?

One hears the refrain: 147 countries have recognized Palestine. The implied argument runs: majority equals morality equals inevitability. This is a Foreign Ministry version of argumentum ad populum. The supposed avalanche of recognitions has produced neither peace nor governance, neither civic pluralism nor demilitarization. The guns didn’t fall silent; they multiplied. Hezbollah didn’t retreat; it rearmed. Hamas didn’t moderate; it industrialized cruelty.

Recognition divorced from reform hardens the worst actors and punishes the best arguments. It tells the Palestinian street: why vote out the militants when Europe will hand you a state regardless? It tells the Israeli public: your self-restraint is evidence of guilt, your survival is evidence of aggression.

The operant phrase here—and the notion that makes hash of Macron’s proposal, is that it calls for “recognition divorced from reform.”

More:

[Macron] speaks to Abbas about “trust, clarity, commitment.” Trust must be earned. Clarity requires maps, laws, and leaders who survive without stipends from terrorists. Commitment begins with a single test: renounce the destruction of Israel in Arabic, in writing, in schools, and in mosques. No backchannels, no “resistance,” no flirtation with martyrdom culture. Then we can talk borders. Until then, we are not in the realm of diplomacy, but in the showroom of European performative statesmanship.

There is an alternative—it just requires adult terms

The alternative to Macron’s gesture politics exists, and it has three pillars:

1. Prior Disarmament and Constitutional Guarantees: Any Palestinian state must be a state that ends “pay-for-slay,” purges genocidal education, and constitutionally recognizes Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
2. Regional Accountability: Iran and Qatar finance, arm, and launder this conflict. No Palestinian “state” stabilizes while the patrons of jihad remain unpenalized. Recognition that bypasses this reality is fraud.
3. Moral Reciprocity: Israel’s Arab minority has rights. Jews in a Palestinian state must have rights. If the future Palestinian state rejects pluralism in principle, it forfeits recognition in practice.

What’s above is Friesen’s solution (he offers another version below), and it sounds reasonable. Will it happen? No way! And what’s below is both savvy and true, and Macron is a blithering idiot for promoting these consequences:

The consequences will not stop at the Green Line

Those who think this is just about Israel are already asleep. What Macron is normalizing is the West’s capitulation to grievance without responsibility, to victimhood without introspection, and to diplomacy without memory. Today it’s Palestine. Tomorrow, it will be Lebanon’s reinvention under Hezbollah’s rebranded PR team. Then it will be the Syrian regime getting a cosmetic makeover from its Russian backers. All in the name of “regional stability,” which—if recent history is any guide—is diplomatic code for “we can’t afford to care anymore.”

And let us not kid ourselves: this will echo through the democracies of the West. Macron’s recognition gives license to every armchair revolutionary and anti-Zionist campus demagogue to declare victory. It emboldens those who set fire to synagogues in Europe while chanting “intifada.” It tells the “Free Palestine” mobs: you no longer have to argue—Paris has already agreed.

It delegitimizes Israel’s defensive war by presuming symmetry where there is none. It casts the aggressor as a co-equal interlocutor, rather than a regime that kidnaps children, slaughters civilians, and builds tunnels under schools. It gaslights the Israeli dead into mere “complications,” and elevates the architects of their murder into state-builders.

Finally, Friesen reiterates his preconditions for peace, something Macron neglected entirely. Macron states what he wants, but they are no “preconditions for peace.”

The only way forward—clarity before recognition

There is a path forward. It is not a utopia, but it is achievable:

• Palestinian reform must come before international recognition, not as a reward for avoiding it.
• Hamas must be defeated, not “demilitarized.” You do not negotiate disarmament with a group that views compromise as apostasy.
• Education must be de-radicalized, not subsidized. Palestinian children deserve books that teach coexistence, not maps that erase Israel.
• The right of return must be relinquished, not romanticized. No peace will come from imagining that Tel Aviv is negotiable.
• And finally, Israel must be recognized not merely as a fact, but as a moral necessity—a refuge state for a people nearly extinguished, and the only one of its kind.

Until those terms are met, every recognition letter, every UN podium gesture, every Elysée photo-op is an act of profound irresponsibility—a theatre of virtue where tragedy is the curtain call.

A few final statements from Friesen:

Macron’s letter is already being archived as “historic.” It is no such thing. It is the bureaucratic paraphrase of a failure to learn, a polished signature at the bottom of a diplomatic hallucination. The same moral calamity that allowed Europe to whisper through the rise of Islamism at home now shouts Palestine abroad, hoping it buys a little more credibility in the salons of global virtue.

Let it be remembered, when the next war breaks out—and it will—that the match was struck not in Rafah or Tel Aviv, but in the offices of those who mistook theatrical compassion for strategy, and who never paid the price for their illusions. Others always do.

. . . I don’t write this from a place of cynicism, but of conclusion. At this point, I consider the two-state solution—and the rush to recognition—not merely premature, but illusory. That said, I’m open to being proven wrong. Not swayed by sentiment, applause lines, or diplomatic euphemisms—but by reasoned, evidence-based arguments.

***************

One final note: as I’ve said, I consider anti-Zionism—the opposition to the existence of a Jewish state—as a form of anti-Semitism. And, in a new Pharyngula column (archived here), P. Z. Myers, who has bought deeply into Hamas propaganda, shows himself to be an anti-Zionist in this way. In fact, he wants Israel abolished and turned over to Palestine.

I no longer support the right of the Jewish state of Israel to exist. Dismantle that horrible government and turn the entire country over to Palestinians, with independent UN monitoring to prevent retaliation. Although, to be honest, I think some retaliation is necessary for justice to prevail — Netanyahu, for instance, ought to spend the rest of his disgusting life in prison.

Additionally, it’s committing genocide. I don’t care to hear from people who are splitting hairs to deny that Israel is a genocidal monster of a state.

Myers is no fool. He realizes that turning Israel over to Palestine will result in the mass slaughter of Jews, and “independent UN monitoring” will not stop that.  What good has “independent UN monitoring” done to stop the depredations of Hezbollah in Lebanon? The UN declared in Resolution 1701 that Hezbollah cannot attack Israel, must disarm itself, and had to stay north of the Litani River. UN forces are in fact in Lebanon to explicitly prevent these things, but they have done exactly nothing.And that’s what they’ll do in Myer’s “Palestinian + Jewish state.” If you think otherwise, you’re deluded.

In fact, Myers says that “some retaliation” is necessary for justice to prevail. Is that only imprisonment, or should the consequences be more severe? He says only that Netanyahu should be imprisoned for life.  Is that the only retaliation necessary?

As for Israel committing genocide, Myers is notably silent on Hamas’s explicit genocide as instantiated in its initial charter and in its actions in the various intifadas. Shouldn’t there be some “retaliation” for Hamas having killed thousands of Jewish civilians on October 7 two years ago, as well as having kidnapped and held Israeli citizens as hostages? (Hamas also killed some Israeli civilian hostages).  No, because Myers apparently has no existing beef with Hamas as well as remaining woefully ignorant of the tricky geopolitics of a two-state solution.

And so, along with Macron, we have another blockhead, and one who calls loudly for the abolition of the state of Israel. In fact, in 2010, the U.S. State Department under Secretary John Kerry declared that “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist” was one form of antisemitism. As far as I know, this criterion still holds.

Draw your own conclusions.

Nobody wants the death of innocent civilians in Gaza, but nobody seems to realize that this carnage can be laid on the doorstep of Hamas, who explicitly and admittedly use civilians as human shields. Hamas officials have in fact said that the terror tunnels are not for protecting civilians, but for protecting Hamas itself.  Hamas has sequestered billions of dollars it could have used to improve the lot of Gaza and its people, but they use the money to build tunnels and rockets, and to sequester food and goods for themselves.

Yet the damnation you hear is directed not at Hamas, but at Israel, because the Jewish state isn’t allowed to win a war.

But there’s another Big Lie promulgated by nearly all the mainstream media, and by Westerners and NGOs: the strife in the Middle East could be ended if there were just a cease-fire in Gaza.  My beef is that people don’t realize that any such solution would be temporary, and would certainly not end the hatred of Israel and Jews on the part of Hamas.  The best way to begin ending the war, at least for the nonce, is for Hamas to surrender and turn over the hostages.

They won’t, of course, but the US and other countries are not powerless to effect that solution. There’s a big and important airbase in Qatar, Al Udeid Air Base, that houses the forces not only of the U.S., but also of the UK’s Royal Air Force. That base is not essential to the US or UK, but is essential to the government of Qatar, for without it Qatar would quickly be invaded by countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Why is Qatar afraid of invasion by other Arab countries? Because those countries realize that Qatar is a major supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), which includes Hamas. Much of the Arab world has outlawed the MB.  Qatar houses many of the leaders of Hamas, some of whom are multibillionaires, funnels money to Hamas, and supports Al-Jazeera, which broadcasts MB propagands.  All the US and UK would have to do is threaten to remove the air base, which could be relocated in countries like Saudi Arabia (where we already have a base) or the UAE, and Qatar would bend.  That would be accompanied by a demand that Qatar arrest Hamas members and put the clamps on Al-Jazeera.  This seems to me likely to end Hamas in Gaza, and it’s surely worth a try.

Qatar’s involvement in supporting Hamas is no secret: it’s a fact the whole world knows. So why isn’t the world putting pressure on Qatar to quash Hamas? Why isn’t the world demanding a UN resolution against Qatar like it does, repeatedly, with Israel?

Well, you know the answer.  Qatar is not a Jewish state. This kind of pressure seems to me to be the most effective way to bring peace to Gaza. Hamas, of course would have to surrender unconditionally and release all the hostages, and that’s dicey. But if they don’t, they should suffer the world’s opprobrium, which has been directed at Israel instead. We hear a lot about Israel’s “war crimes” (this is wrong), but nothing about Hamas from activists like Greta Thunberg, who wouldn’t even look at the Hamas brutality that started the war on October 7, 2023.

But I digress.  What I am trying to say is that a simple cease-fire, in which Israel stops attacking Gaza and withdraws from the territory, is not any kind of solution to the problem. The main reason is that it leaves Hamas in power, and Hamas has sworn (in its initial charter) not only to wipe out Israel and kill Jews, but to repeat Oct 7 over and over again. Why on earth would people think that leaving Hamas in power is any kind of solution to the war? It would simply start the war all over again. (Hamas is still firing rockets into Israel.)

One of the brainless and useful idiots for terrorism happens to be the NYT’s Tom Friedman. His “solution” to the war is given in this NYT op-ed (archived here). His thesis is that Israel’s conduct in the war is so shameful that it endangers Jews throughout the world.  I don’t think the conduct has been shameful, but yes, the ignorance of the West—its belief in the Big Lies like “genocide” and “apartheid” and “two-state solutions”—is what endangers Jews, for this ignorance breeds a lassitude about the hatred of Jews.

Here, indented, is Friedman’s “solution”. He admits that Hamas is horrible, but, as with many like Greta, he claims that Israel’s response has been “disproportionate,” without understanding what “disproportionality” means in the international law of war. (See Natasha Hausdorff for an explanation.)

Israel months ago destroyed Hamas as an existential military threat. [JAC: I don’t believe that.] Given that, the Netanyahu government should be telling the Trump administration and Arab mediators that it’s ready to withdraw from Gaza in a phased manner and be replaced by an international/Arab/Palestinian Authority [PA] peacekeeping force — provided that the Hamas leadership agrees to return all remaining living and dead hostages and leave the strip.

That is ridiculous, for Hamas will never accept an “international/Arab/Palestinian Authority peacekeeping force. Hamas hates the PA and killed many of them when Hamas narrowly won the Gaza elections in 2006.  Further, the PA is also a terrorist organization (they maintain, after all, the “pay for slay” program that pays terrorists to attack Jews).  If you think they can rule Gaza without having designs on Israel, you’re misguided. Now if they could find decent, moderate, leaders in the international and Arab community to run Gaza, that’s another matter, but nobody thinks this is feasible.

No, a cease-fire will not work until Hamas lays down its arms, lets all the hostages go, and disbands. That is the only kind of cease-fire that has a chance of working, and is about as likely as asserting that, at the moment, a “two state solution” will end strife in the Middle East.  It won’t—not right now.  The first thing to do is get Qatar to do what it should to get rid of Hamas. And those actions involve not violence, but political and financial pressure.

As Malgorzata commented when I sent her this article, “Tom Friedman seems to be on the same intellectual level as Greta Thunberg.”

As you surely know, the “Freedom Flotilla,” which is a boat called the Madleen carrying a bunch of activists (most notably Greta Thunberg), is heading to Gaza with a bit of aid for civilians. (I heard it was enough aid for about a dozen Gazans, but I don’t know for sure.). Israel has vowed to block the ship, and in fact there is a UN report allowing Israel to impose a general blockade as a means of self defense (this followed a violent incident in 2011 when another Gaza Freedom Flotilla clashed with Israeli commandos, resulting in the death of 9 activists).  If you’re a supporter of Israel like me, there’s a downside for whatever decision Israel makes: if Greta & Co. is allowed to pass through the blockade, they will broadcast loudly about how horrible Israel has been to Gaza; but if their boat is blocked, it’ll be a stopping of humanitarian aid—just a tiny amount, but, curiously, Greta still has a loud voice. And that will also look bad.  I’m leaning towards letting the ship in, though I don’t know the consequences for the UN resolution.

From NBC News:

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has vowed to block an aid vessel carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists from reaching Gaza, by “any means necessary.”

The Madleen departed Sicily last Sunday, aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza, deliver humanitarian aid, and draw attention to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

According to a live tracker on board the vessel, it was sailing north of the Egyptian coastal city of Rosetta on Sunday morning, roughly 160 nautical miles from Gaza.

Katz said Sunday that he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to “prevent the ‘Madelaine’ hate flotilla from reaching the shores of Gaza.”

“To the anti-Semitic Greta and her fellow Hamas propaganda spokespeople, I say clearly: You should turn back — because you will not reach Gaza,” he posted on Telegram.

“Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade or aid terrorist organizations — at sea, in the air and on land.”

On Sunday, a press officer for the Madleen, Hay Sha Wiya, said the crew was “preparing for the possibility of interception.”

One thing I’m sure of, unlike the previous incident, I don’t think the crew of the Madleen will use weapons as part of their “preparations.”

Here’s Greta making their case (note: I’m not vouching for the veracity of any assertion):

So, I’ll solicit comments (I no longer am able to insert polls:

What do you think of this molehill on a mountain?  Should Israel let the Madleen into Gaza or should it intercept the ship and send it back?  Or should it take some other action If you don’t care, there’s no need to say that.