RAMALLAH: The Palestinian foreign ministry on Monday condemned the Israeli prime minister’s criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron for announcing that Paris intended to recognise a Palestinian state within months.
“The ministry strongly condemns the unjustified attack and offensive remarks made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his son against President Emmanuel Macron,“ the Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement.
“The ministry considers these statements a clear acknowledgement of Netanyahu’s ongoing hostility to peace based on the two-state solution, as well as a blatant rejection of international legitimacy and a persistent preference for violence and military solutions over the political path.”
Macron, in an interview with France 5 broadcast on Wednesday, said that France could take the step during a United Nations conference in New York in June, adding he hoped it would trigger a reciprocal recognition of Israel by Arab countries.
“We must move towards recognition, and we will do so in the coming months,“ Macron said.
“I will do it because I believe that at some point it will be right and because I also want to participate in a collective dynamic, which must also allow all those who defend Palestine to recognise Israel in turn, which many of them do not do.”
France has long championed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including after the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel.
But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy switch and risk antagonising Israel, which insists such moves by foreign states are premature.
Macron’s remarks sparked a wave of criticism from right-wing groups in France and from Netanyahu and his son Yair Netanyahu.
“Screw you!” Yair Netanyahu wrote in English on X late on Saturday, while his father Benjamin Netanyahu himself dismissed Macron’s remarks.
– ‘Moral lectures’ –
“President Macron is gravely mistaken in continuing to promote the idea of a Palestinian state in the heart of our land — a state whose sole aspiration is the destruction of Israel,“ Netanyahu said in a statement.
“We will not accept moral lectures about establishing a Palestinian state that would threaten Israel’s survival — especially not from those who oppose granting independence to Corsica, New Caledonia, French Guiana, and other territories, whose independence would pose no threat to France whatsoever.”
In Tel Aviv, teacher Nurit Sperling told AFP in French that Macron “absolutely shouldn’t have done that”.
“This is really not the right time,“ the 50-year-old said of a sovereign Palestinian state.
“I think we saw on October 7 that it’s not feasible. We can’t live like this, next to them, in this way.”
Lawyer Naama Yadlin said he felt ashamed of Yair and Benjamin Netanyahu’s stances on the matter.
He described Netanyahu’s comparison between France’s overseas departments and the Palestinian territories as “incorrect and factually flawed”, noting that residents of the former are French citizens with the same rights as those living in mainland France.
“I support a Palestinian state, and I regret that it hasn’t happened yet,“ Yadlin, 65, said.
Relations between Israel and France have deteriorated in recent months.
France would be the most significant European power to recognise a Palestinian state, a move the United States has also long resisted.
Nearly 150 countries recognise a Palestinian state, recent being Ireland, Norway, Spain, and Slovenia who announced recognition last year.
