July 28, 2025

French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent announcement that France will move to recognize a so-called “Palestinian state,” headed by the kleptocracy known as the Palestinian Authority, is not only morally indefensible — it’s also strategically foolish, historically blind and deeply corrosive to the prospects of real peace. It is a gift to terrorism, an insult to international law, a betrayal of France’s own long-standing commitment to “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” and democracy itself.

Let’s be clear: There is no historical, legal or ethical justification for rewarding the Palestinian Authority (PA) — a regime neck-deep in corruption, antisemitism and incitement to violence — with statehood. Macron’s decision signals to the world that terrorism, rejectionism and the glorification of murder can achieve diplomatic rewards. It sends a chilling message not only to Israelis, but to the free world.

Rewarding Terrorism, Undermining Morality

Hamas’s Oct. 7 pogrom — the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust — saw babies murdered in cold blood, women raped, civilians burned alive and entire families slaughtered. It was not carried out in a vacuum, but in a culture of hate that has been nurtured for decades by both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA). That culture is taught in PA schools, echoed in its mosques and broadcast daily on PA-controlled media. Macron’s recognition of a Palestinian state — in the wake of this savagery — legitimizes the very ideology and actions that produced Oct. 7.

Let’s remember: the Palestinian Authority, headed by Mahmoud Abbas (now in year 19 of a 4-year term), not only fails to condemn Hamas’s atrocities — it has long partnered with Hamas politically and ideologically. The PA’s infamous “Pay for Slay” program uses foreign aid to reward Palestinian terrorists and their families with generous monthly stipends. This isn’t conjecture — it’s well documented. France, like other Western democracies, knows this. Yet Macron ignores it.

What message does this send to the world’s other secessionist or ethnic-nationalist movements? That insane, intentional mass-murder and intransigence pay. Why should the Kurds, Catalans, Basques or Baluchis continue to pursue peaceful solutions to their lack of sovereignty & self-determination, when the Palestinian model — the model of plane hijackings, suicide bombings, rocket attacks, random stabbing attacks and glorification of violent jihad — gets you a seat at the U.N.and recognition by Paris?

A Rejectionist Movement, NOT a National Movement

It is historically indisputable, the modern Palestinian Arab national identity did not coalesce as a desire to build an independent nation but rather to prevent the existence of one: the Jewish State of Israel. Going back over 100 years, it’s that rejectionist ethos, which lies at the heart of this conflict — not “settlements,” not borders, not “occupation.” The Palestinian Arabs have rejected statehood at least six times since 1936 — including the Peel Commission, the U.N.Partition Plan of 1947, the Clinton Parameters in 2000, and Ehud Olmert’s far-reaching offer in 2008.

Each time, the answer was an emphatic NO.

Not “no” to the details, but “no” to the very idea of an independent Jewish state.

It’s why during the almost two decades after 1948 when Gaza and Judea & Samaria (and the Old City of Jerusalem) were under complete Arab control, no Arab leader (including any Palestinian leader) called for the creation of a Palestinian state in those territories. It is why the PLO was founded in 1964 — three years before the so-called “occupation” of Gaza and Judea & Samaria. It’s why Palestinian leaders consistently refer to all of Israel as “occupied.” Their maps erase Israel, not the “West Bank.” Their slogans in Arabic — “From the river to the sea [Palestine will be Arab]” — are calls for eradication, not coexistence.

Macron’s recognition of a Palestinian state under these conditions is an endorsement of that rejectionism. It says to the Palestinian leadership: You don’t need to accept the Jewish people’s right to sovereignty and self-determination. You don’t need to recognize Israel. You don’t need to stop inciting violence against Jews. We’ll reward you anyway.

The Palestinian Authority Is No Partner for Peace

For those who argue that Macron is recognizing the PA, not Hamas — that this is about moderate governance and not Islamist terror — I say: Look at the record.

The Palestinian Authority is a complete kleptocracy. Billions of dollars in aid have vanished into the pockets of Abbas and his cronies. Transparency International consistently ranks the PA as among the most corrupt entities in the world. Its security forces routinely suppress dissent, jail journalists and torture political rivals.

But far worse for the prospects of peace than the corruption is the PA’s antisemitic indoctrination of its people. From childhood, Palestinians are taught to hate Jews, not merely Israelis. Textbooks deny both Israel’s right to exist and the Jewish people’s existence. “Martyrs” — terrorists who murder civilians — are celebrated as heroes. Streets are named after mass-murderers, including those who intentionally butcher Jewish children. Peace is not taught. Compromise is not envisioned. Instead, total “resistance” to Israel’s very existence is glorified.

What kind of state will this be? A very corrupt, deeply undemocratic, totalitarian state built on antisemitism, funded by Europe and armed — directly or indirectly — by rejectionist dictatorships like Iran and Qatar. A state that names schools after Dalal Mughrabi, who led the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre, killing 38 Israelis, including 13 children. This is what Macron proposes to reward and recognize?

History as Our Guide

The inconvenient truth — one the international community has refused to grapple with — is that Palestinian statehood has never been the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict because since its inception, this conflict has never been about borders or land. It has always been about the very existence of a Jewish state. The so-called “Two-State Solution” is built on a false premise: that if the Palestinian Arabs simply get a state in part of historical Israel (or what the colonialist Romans renamed “Syria-Palaestina”), they will then live in peace beside Israel.

History tells a different story.

In Gaza, Israel unilaterally withdrew in 2005, evicting thousands of Jews from their homes to make way for a Palestinian state-in-miniature. What followed? A near immediate Hamas takeover, brutal dictatorship imposed on the Gazans, tens of thousands of rockets fired on Israeli civilians, mass-murder terrorism directed from Hamas in Gaza and three major wars. The lesson of Gaza is clear: Palestinian Arab sovereignty — without a fundamental change in leadership, ideology, and education — doesn’t lead to peace, but to more and far-bloodier violence.

***

Macron may believe he is advancing peace. Or he may believe that with a growing antisemitic and anti-Israel base in France he is being politically savvy. The one thing he is certainly doing is rewarding antisemitic hatred and violence, corruption and entrenched rejectionism, all while he is endangering further the only democracy in the Middle East. By recognizing a terrorist-sympathetic and hate-filled kleptocracy as a legitimate state, France is abandoning its foundational ethos of liberty, equality & fraternity, and further undermining its credibility.

Peace can only come to the Levant when the Palestinian leadership accepts the Jewish people’s right to a state in their indigenous, religious and ancestral homeland; and teaches their people that the Jewish people are nothing like the French in Algeria … that the Jewish people are in the land of Israel to stay. Not one second before.

Until then, recognizing a Palestinian state certainly won’t lead to peace. That’s just a reward for corruption, hate and terrorism. Thinking it will lead to peace is, at best, a dangerous delusion.

---

Micha Danzig served in the Israeli Army and is a former police officer with the NYPD. He is currently an attorney and is very active with numerous Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, including Stand With Us and the FIDF, and is a national board member of Herut North America.