27-07-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
France takes stand as Gaza faces starvation
Emmanuel Macron has set a pigeon among hawks by announcing his decision to formally recognise Palestine at the UN General Assembly in September. Nearly three-fourths of the UN's 193 members already recognise the state embattled and occupied by Israel. India was among the first to do so in 1988. France's move will leave the US and the UK as the only members of the Security Council's Permanent Five not to have done so. That means Palestine still cannot become a full UN member.
Australia and the UK, whose foreign ministers joined their French and 27 other counterparts a week ago in calling for an end to the Gaza carnage, clarified later that they would not follow France's gesture for now. The irony is that it was France's agreement in 1916 to hand Ottoman Palestine to Britain and the British foreign secretary's action in 1917 that led to the violent waves of Zionism battering West Asia even today. Like imperial Britain then, America today wants the resourceful Zionists in its sphere of influence. So, any attempt at peace between the occupier and the occupied has remained agonisingly out of reach.
