Why has France decided to recognise Palestinian statehood?
Why now?
Macron's announcement on Thursday came as international alarm grew about the plight of the more than two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, where Israel's war against the Hamas militant group has triggered a dire humanitarian crisis and warnings of mass starvation.
"The sense of urgency may have driven the president to move forward alone," France's former ambassador to Israel Gerard Araud told the France Inter broadcaster.
Besides the humanitarian crisis and "the shocking declarations of certain Israeli ministers" on the fate they wish for all Gazans, Macron may also have been influenced by the political climate in France, said David Khalfa of the Jean Jaures Foundation.
The war has triggered tensions in France, which is home to the largest Muslim community in the European Union, as well as the biggest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States.
What's the plan?
France has long advocated for the so-called "two-state solution" for a Palestinian state to live in peace side-by-side with an Israeli one.
Macron's original idea was for France and other countries to recognise a Palestinian state at the same time as other nations -- including Gulf heavyweight Saudi Arabia -- normalised ties with Israel.
As that proposal did not appear to gain traction, Macron made his announcement in the hope of spurring others to do likewise in the run-up to September's UN General Assembly, said analyst Amelie Ferey.
"The idea is to have a little over a month to potentially rally other countries to make a larger announcement in New York," said Ferey, an analyst at the French Institute of International Relations.
"The United Kingdom and Canada could perhaps follow suit," she added.
Will it work?
Canada, France and Britain were among 25 countries on Monday to say the Gaza war "must end now", arguing that the suffering of civilians had "reached new depths".
Mujtaba Rahman, the Europe director of political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, said British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was under pressure from his Labour party to act.
"He wants to move in concert with other countries and use recognition as a card in negotiations on a ceasefire in Gaza," he said.
"But the timing is awkward" as US President Donald Trump arrives in Scotland on Friday evening, he added.
"Starmer will be reluctant to upset him when there's still things to be done on the UK-US trade deal."
Why team up with Riyadh?
As France has no leverage to end the current Gaza war, "the idea in Paris is to let the United States impose a ceasefire, and for Paris to then be an important actor afterwards, along with the Saudis," said Ferey.
Camille Lons, an expert from the European Council on Foreign Relations, said France and Saudi Arabia were working on a post-ceasefire roadmap.
This would include proposals for "the isolation and disarmament of Hamas, Palestinian elections in 2026, a new legal framework for political parties" and "the prospect of having a technocratic government", she said.
Other options on the table could include a UN peacekeeping mission, including personnel from neighbouring Egypt, she said.
"The goal is to garner support from countries in the region for the sidelining of Hamas, including Qatar," an ally of the Palestinian Islamist group, she added.
Is it realistic?
But "this is all quite detached from reality", warned Lons.
For Ferey, "the Israeli government's goal is for there to be no Palestinian state."
After almost 22 months of war in Gaza, sparked by an unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, the blockaded Palestinian territory has been largely ravaged by bombardment.
And Israel's far-right government is pushing for the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Many Israelis now live in what would become a Palestinian state.
Excluding Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem and its 200,000 Jewish residents, the occupied West Bank is home to around 500,000 Israelis in settlements considered illegal under international law. Three million Palestinians also live in the West Bank.
Khalfa added that Saudi Arabia had no intention to normalise its ties with Israel for as long as Prime Minister Netanyahu -- who critics accuse of prolonging the Gaza war to stay in office -- remains in power.
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He further pointed to systematic Israeli military operations aimed at demolishing 'hospitals, mosques, museums and the goal is then to force the population to leave,' despite the fact that 'people won't and can't leave and have no place to go to.' Israel has repeatedly rejected accusations of conducting a genocidal campaign, stating its operation is solely geared towards disempowering and eradicating Hamas. Also, Israel has stated it never intentionally targeted civilians, in turn accusing Hamas of using them as human shields. What distinguishes Israel's operation in Gaza from ethnic cleansing and confirms the will to destroy Palestinians, according to Bartov, is that 'you make it impossible for that group to reconstitute itself and it is section D of the Genocide Convention, it's about imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.' He points to a recent 65-page report by Israeli NGO Physicians for Human Rights that says Israel's actions in Gaza amount to genocide. The report documents the staggering number of miscarriages among Gazan women, the number of children who are born underweight or premature and maternal mortality amid famine due to lack of healthcare. Bartov believes Israel's operation in Gaza is set to go on, not to finish Hamas, which it is still fighting almost two years into the war, but to empty Gaza of Palestinians, as Israel no longer accepts the idea of a Palestinian state. Section A of the same convention says killing members of the group with the overall intent to destroy it also constitutes genocide. Section B mentions causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. Bartov says both apply in the case of Israel's operation in Gaza. 'That is clear, we are talking about between 60,000 and 100,000 dead,' said Bartov, also mentioning 140,000 wounded, the chronically ill who died because hospitals no longer function, and Palestinians debilitated by hunger. Bartov rejects the argument that the number of casualties released by the Hamas-controlled health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, may be inaccurate or, as Israel claims, grossly exaggerated. He, like the Israeli NGO B'Tselem, which also labels Israel's actions in Gaza genocide, believes the Hamas figures are 'reliable', 'well documented' and even 'conservative', as thousands of bodies are still trapped under the rubble. 'Let the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) provide its own figures, they should allow the foreign press in, the burden of proof is on the IDF,' Bartov insisted, adding that the number of victims actually does not matter to prove genocide. 'The convention is about killing people and members of the group, it is not about killing all members of the group," he emphasised. Easing humanitarian crisis 'irrelevant' to genocide accusation Past ceasefires agreed to by Israel and the recent easing of the food blockade amid reports of starvation in Gaza do not change Bartov's genocide accusation. The ceasefires were imposed on Israel, he argues instead. 'The last ceasefire was imposed by President Trump as he came in, and in March, Israel unilaterally broke the ceasefire, within a few minutes it killed a few hundred," he explained. 'This is has nothing to do with the main intent (of genocide) ... it is not at all something that is done willingly." Bartov claims that the Israeli government and Netanyahu openly tell the Israeli public that they are agreeing to 'the so-called humanitarian pause', notably under pressure from Trump, because 'these are measures that will make it possible for Israel to continue its operations.' In Gaza, Palestinians continue to be killed in the meantime, he says. Most Israelis 'in denial' of what is happening in Gaza When they released their reports on Monday, Israeli NGOs B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights also issued a common appeal, calling on 'Israelis and the international community to take immediate action to stop the genocide, using all legal tools available under international law.' We put the question of Israel's public opinion to Bartov, himself an Israeli citizen who served in the army. "Of course they are aware, you cannot not be aware, but most Israelis don't want to know," he said. 'Yesterday, there was an extraordinary report on Kan 11, the public TV, which also showed for the first time some images of starving children in Gaza but then said all this is fake news and showed footage of people selling fruits and vegetables at a market in Gaza.' Euronews verified the Kan 11 footage but also found that Israeli media claim that some of the photos depicting starving Palestinian children were reportedly manipulated. US and Europe 'duty-bound' to stop war in Gaza To Bartov, it is important to recognise what Israel is doing in Gaza as genocide 'because all signatory states of the Genocide Convention include all the European countries and the United States (which) are duty bound to do something' -- to prevent, stop and punish those responsible. Instead, according to him, the US and Europe remain 'complicit' in what is happening in Gaza. 'In the case of Germany it's especially appalling not only because it is the major European power, the major supplier (of weapons) to Israel, but also because it does it in the name of the Holocaust (...) the Staatraison.' Germany, he says, in feeling responsible for the Holocaust, should prevent crimes against humanity and genocide but not protect a country 'that is the successor state of the Holocaust while it is itself carrying out a genocide." "That is a complete distortion of the lessons of World War II, Nazism and the Holocaust," Bartov argued. Fear of mounting antisemitism While Bartov says urgent action is needed to stop the violence in Gaza, one of the long-term repercussions, he fears, is that 'Israel will become a pariah state (...) if it is allowed to get away with it." "If one has an interest in protecting Israel, helping it become a decent place, it has to impose measures on it now that would stop not only the killing of Palestinians but also the rapid erosion of democracy,' he implored. Bartov also expressed further concerns about the effect of Israel being a pariah state on Jewish communities around the world, which he says would be 'severe,' pointing to the rise of antisemitism. Bartov, who focused a great deal of his research on Nazi crimes, also deplores that institutions set up to commemorate the Holocaust, be they memorial centres or museums, have been silent on Gaza. Their mandate is not only to remind the public of the horrors of the Holocaust but also to prevent future atrocities by promoting education and remembrance. Their failure to speak up, he says, will dent their credibility. 'They will no longer be able to present themselves as anything but institutions that are only concerned with what could be done to the Jews by the Nazis. Anything else is not their business.' Could Hamas' 7 October attacks be labelled genocide? Asked whether the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October 2023, that left close to 1,200 Israelis dead, could also be qualified as genocide, Bartov says: 'obviously, it was a war crime. Obviously, it was a crime against humanity because of the large numbers of civilians killed." "One would need to adjudicate that but it could be, if it is connected to the Hamas charter of the late 1980s which is an antisemitic, genocidal document, it could be seen as genocidal act.' 'I'm a little sceptical about that, but certainly I think one could make that argument. I'm sceptical because Hamas actually issued different documents later," Bartov concluded.
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No clear genocide intent so far First coined by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944, the word 'genocide' is defined under the 1948 Convention as a set of five crimes 'committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.' Those crimes include 'Killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.' The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza started after Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on 7 October 2023 in southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking hundreds hostage. Fifty hostages are still being held, although fewer than half of them are believed to be alive. Since then, UN agencies have warned that Israel's airstrikes on Gaza, along with a siege of the territory, have resulted in the deaths of more than 60,000 people, the forced displacement of tens of thousands and growing evidence of man-caused mass starvation. In December 2023, South Africa started proceedings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) against Israel for alleged violations of the 1948 Convention, arguing that 'acts and omissions by Israel ... are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent ... to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.' A year later, Amnesty International became one of the first international NGOs to conclude in a report that 'there is sufficient evidence to believe that Israel's conduct in Gaza following 7 October 2023 amounts to genocide.' More recently, B'Tselem, a prominent Israeli NGO also stated that Israel's policy in the Gaza Strip 'together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack,' led to the conclusion that 'Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip.' In a separate interview, genocide and Holocaust scholar Omer Bartov told Euronews that he had labelled Israel's military campaign a genocide in May 2024, when the Israeli army decided to flatten Rafah after ordering its residents to evacuate the city in the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, and moving them to Mawasi – a coastal area with almost no shelter. But for an international law expert and barrister like Talmon, there is no sufficient proof of a clear intent to commit genocide in Israel so far, and it will be 'very difficult' for South Africa or any other country to prove that Israel is committing genocide. 'It's not just that you are killing people as such and you deliberately kill someone,' Talmon said. 'You have to kill the person because you want to destroy the group he is a part of, in whole or in part.' 'That does not necessarily mean that you would have to kill the group in whole, or in part,' Talmon continued. 'We have seen convictions of individuals for genocide where just one person has been killed … You don't need 6 million people dead like the Holocaust to have genocide.' The proof is either 'direct evidence,' he said, like a decision of the Israeli security cabinet which would 'spell out that the cabinet wants to basically exterminate the Palestinian people.' But the ICJ can also require indirect evidence by which 'you may basically infer the intention to destroy in whole or in part from a certain pattern of action.' In addition, he said, there must be 'no other inference than can be drawn from the fact than the intention to destroy.' The example of Srebrenica Talmon pointed to the genocide in the eastern Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995, which resulted in the systematic execution of more than 8,000 Bosniaks, mostly men and boys. Despite a number of cases of genocide brought against Bosnian Serb military and political leadership for crimes in different parts of the country, the ICJ ruled that it was committed only in Srebrenica. 'The (Bosnian) Serbs separated women and children from men and started, within a short period of time, to kill (thousands of) men of all ages, from 16 to basically 65 or 75, irrespective of whether these were soldiers or whether these were civilians,' he said. 'Now in that situation, the International Court of Justice said: what other explanation can you give for that mass killing within these kind of two days other than to destroy in whole or in part, the Bosnian Muslims in that area and exterminate them?' 'We haven't had any such situation in the Gaza Strip,' Talmon added. Crime against humanity versus genocide Without indisputable, direct or indirect evidence of the intention to destroy, Israel could be prosecuted on charges of war crimes or crimes against humanity, Talmon said. Under UN rules, the term 'war crimes' refers to violations of international humanitarian law 'committed against civilians or enemy combatants during an international or domestic armed conflict." A crime against humanity refers to a series of crimes 'committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack." 'The Israeli action, of course, could also be explained in many other ways,' Talmon said. 'Beginning from the fight against Hamas to rescuing the hostages, it could be by mere brutality, retaliation, vengeance, ethnic cleansing,' he explained. There is a multitude of other explanations for Israeli actions, so it will be very difficult to say because the Israelis are using excessive force, they are driving Palestinians to the south of the Gaza Strip, they are confining them to very specific areas, they are basically reducing the available food and water and medical supplies to them," Talmon continued. "That may all be explained by other motives.' Despite the absence of clear evidence or compliance with the high standards of genocide, Talmon concluded that such a verdict would carry devastating effects for the Israelis, many of whom are survivors or children of survivors of the Holocaust. 'If you find that Israel is committing genocide or that Germany committed genocide, It's not just the present government that will be seen as a génocidaire,' Talmon said, using the French word for perpetrator of genocide. 'It is the whole people," he stated. "The Israelis become perpetrators … The Germans have become perpetrators.' Founded in 1945, the ICJ has issued genocide verdicts in a handful of cases against individuals, and is yet to rule against any country for genocide. Genocide cases in front of international courts are an arduous endeavour, often taking over a decade to see through until a verdict is reached. Israel has vehemently rejected all allegations of a genocidal campaign in Gaza, in turn stating that its actions are meant to disempower and destroy Hamas. It has also repeatedly accused the militant group of intentionally endangering the lives of Palestinians by using them as human shields, while saying that it has done all in its power to prevent civilian losses.
