When French President Emmanuel Macron strode to the UN podium this week to announce that France would recognize a Palestinian state, he invoked history.
“In 1947, this Assembly decided to divide Palestine, then under a mandate, into two states: one Jewish and the other Arab, thereby recognizing the right of both groups to self-determination,” he said.
By so doing, Macron added, the international community “consecrated the State of Israel… The promise of an Arab state, however, remains unfulfilled to this day.”
Powerful words, with one glaring and telling omission: Macron failed to say that the Jews accepted that partition plan, while the Arabs rejected it outright and chose war instead.
That single “forgotten” fact explains so much of what has transpired since then: repeated Arab attempts to destroy Israel, including as recently as October 7, as well as repeated rejection of offers of a Palestinian state.
By leaving out that single inconvenient truth, Macron delivered a misreading of history. If the French president cannot truthfully look at the past, then why trust him to faithfully be able to read the present?
MACRON’S ANNOUNCEMENT that France would recognize “Palestine,” echoed by the UK, Canada, Australia, and several other European states, drew applause in the General Assembly chamber. “We must do everything within our power to preserve the very possibility of a two-state solution,” he declared, winning plaudits from fellow leaders and applause from the audience.
The ovation was loud, but applause is not authority. Recognition does not confer sovereignty, and Macron’s bid for stature on the world stage – at a time when his stock at home is plunging – hardly makes him the kind of leader who can alter Middle Eastern realities with a speech. In the Middle East, it is not applause in New York or gestures in Paris that determine outcomes – it is policy in Washington that matters.
Another missed note in Macron’s speech came when he declared: “Nothing, nothing justifies continuing the war in Gaza any longer. Nothing.” But, in fact, there is something that does: the release of the hostages and the crushing of Hamas, meaning its defeat, disarmament, and removal from any position of control, power, or authority in the Strip.
To end the war without those conditions is to demand that Israel accept the permanence of Hamas rule and the inevitability of more atrocities.
Equally detached from reality was Macron’s prescription for “the day after.” He envisioned Palestinian security services, trained by Europeans, taking control of Gaza, and even floated the idea of a future “international civilian and security support mission” under UN auspices. Israel has little faith in either.
Palestinian forces in the West Bank have proven weak, corrupt, and penetrated by terrorists. International missions have fared no better: UNIFIL in southern Lebanon – where France played a central role – utterly failed to prevent Hezbollah from turning the area into a vast rocket launching pad. With those memories fresh, Israelis are unlikely to entrust their security in Gaza to a mix of Palestinian forces and European monitors who have already failed them elsewhere.
And then there were Macron’s assurances about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
According to Macron, Abbas has already condemned October 7 and pledged to disarm Hamas, exclude it from governance, fight hate speech, and reform the Palestinian Authority. Israelis have heard this all before. To most Israelis, this sounds like déjà vu, with the reaction likely to be: “Oh, goodie, another promise from Abbas.”
Decades of corruption, incitement, and broken commitments have drained whatever credibility Abbas once had with the Israeli public.
THE SAME disconnect was on full display in the speeches of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Both piled accusation upon accusation, painting Israel as genocidal and illegitimate, and both drew applause for their words.
Erdogan thundered that Israel’s campaign was not war but “a policy of deportation, exile, genocide, and mass slaughter.” Holding up photographs of emaciated children, he called Gaza “the lowest point of humanity” and charged that Israel’s actions amounted to “genocide broadcast live.” He accused Netanyahu of being “obsessed with the Promised Land” and undermining regional peace with expansionist designs.
Thani’s language was no less venomous. He denounced Israel’s September 9 strike on Hamas leaders in Doha as a “rogue act of state terrorism,” accused Israel of seeking to make Gaza unlivable, and claimed Netanyahu viewed war as an opportunity to expand settlements and change the Temple Mount status quo. “It is difficult to cooperate with such a mentality… it is impossible,” he declared.
What was most striking in both speeches was not just what was said, but what was left unsaid. Hamas did appear, but only with its actions excused, contextualized, or cast as a pretext exploited by Jerusalem.
Nowhere was there any condemnation of its October 7 massacre, any acknowledgment of the hostages still held in Gaza, or any recognition that Hamas itself is the reason this war began and continues.
And it was not incidental. Both Turkey and Qatar share ideological roots with Hamas in the Muslim Brotherhood. Their rhetoric at the UN echoed that kinship: Israel as aggressor, Palestinians as perpetual victims, Hamas’s atrocities erased from memory. That affinity should disqualify them from playing any credible role in shaping Gaza’s future.
JORDAN’S KING Abdullah was just as scathing, if more polished. Saying that the UN was born 80 years ago with the pledge, “Never again,” he charged that the Palestinians have been living through “a cruel cycle of ‘yet again.’”
“Bombed indiscriminately… yet again. Killed, injured, and maimed… yet again. Displaced and dispossessed… yet again. Denied rights, dignity… yet again.”
Abdullah accused Israel of “grabbing more land, expanding illegal settlements, and desecrating holy sites.” Yet here too, Hamas was absent from the king’s speech. Not a mention. Not one. As if this war happened because those evil Israelis just woke up one day and decided to bomb Gaza.
Still, Jordan is not Turkey or Qatar. For all its harsh rhetoric at the UN, Jordan cannot afford to sever ties with Israel. The peace treaty remains too vital. Amman depends on Israel for water, on the US for $1.45 billion in annual aid, and on Israeli intelligence and security cooperation to help stabilize both the Jordan Valley and its own eastern border with Iraq.
And then there was Indonesia, a surprising and stunning contrast to all the above.
“We must also recognize, we must also respect, and we must also guarantee the safety and security of Israel,” said President Prabowo Subianto. “Only then we can have real peace.”
Make no mistake, he said, Indonesia will only recognize Israel when Israel recognizes a Palestinian state. Nevertheless, the recognition of Israel’s genuine concerns by the leader of the country with the world’s largest Muslim population is different – and noteworthy. As noteworthy as his ending his speech by saying, “Shalom.”
THE BROADER chorus this week at the UN was the cascade of recognitions of “Palestine” by European and Western states. France, the UK, Canada, Australia, Luxembourg, Malta, Belgium, Monaco – the list continues to grow. Altogether, more than three-quarters of UN members now recognize a Palestinian state.
But recognition without sovereignty is symbolism without practical meaning. That was the paradox on display. Macron at the podium appeared to assume Europe could chart a new path for the Middle East. But this is an illusion. Without the US leading, European declarations – as jarring as they may be to Israeli ears – alter nothing on the ground.
Only Trump's position on Palestinian statehood matters
This is why the most important conversations are not those at the UN, but rather in the White House. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after delivering his speech to the UN on Friday, is preparing to meet Trump on Monday, and here lies the blunt truth: Trump’s position on Palestinian statehood is the only one that counts.
Trump’s speech at the UN could not have been more different from Erdogan’s or Thani’s. He accused Hamas of repeatedly rejecting “reasonable offers to make peace,” warned against rewarding “horrible atrocities, including October 7” with premature recognition, and hammered home one demand: “Those who want peace should be united with one message: release the hostages now.”
The UN can isolate and censure. The Europeans can recognize and applaud. But it is Washington that provides Israel with military aid, diplomatic cover, and the Security Council veto that prevents isolation from becoming suffocation. Recognition in Paris or Ottawa may earn standing ovations in New York, but ultimately it is the White House that matters.
Macron’s omissions, Erdogan’s fulminations, Thani’s accusations, and Abdullah’s laments all share the same flaw: they strip this conflict of context, ignore Hamas’s role, and turn the UN into a stage for symbolism divorced from reality.
Which brings us back to Macron. By erasing the Arab rejection of partition in 1947, he misrepresented the past. By insisting that nothing justifies the continuation of the war, he misreads the threat that a Hamas that remains standing poses to Israel in the present. And by imagining that recognitions, European monitors, or Abbas’s promises can lead to a Palestinian state, he is misjudging the future.
At the UN, these illusions earn applause. On the ground, they only guarantee that the conflict will endure.