https://amsterdam.hostmaster.org/articles/france_to_recognize_whats_left_of_palestine/en.html
In September 2025, President Emmanuel Macron will stand before the UN General Assembly and recognize the State of Palestine. It will be a carefully worded speech, full of appeals to peace, dignity, and international law. Cameras will flash, diplomats will applaud, and headlines will declare it a “historic moment.” But make no mistake: France is not recognizing a state - it is recognizing a graveyard.
By the time Macron makes his declaration, Gaza may be nothing more than scorched earth, littered with the bones of those the world chose not to save. France’s gesture, however well-intentioned, arrives with the morbid punctuality of a condolence letter sent long after the funeral. In the name of diplomacy, Paris will raise a flag over ashes.
France claims its recognition is meant to revive the two-state solution, as part of a broader push for peace. Macron has outlined the usual prerequisites: disarm Hamas, release hostages, reform the Palestinian Authority. On paper, it sounds reasonable. In practice, it sounds like satire. Gaza is under a total siege. The West Bank is being annexed in real time. And France is asking the Palestinians - many of whom are starving, displaced, or dead - to tidy up their politics before they can be recognized as a people.
It would be laughable, if it weren’t soaked in so much blood.
Let’s be blunt: Gaza is a prison, and its inmates are being starved to death. Since March 2025, Israel has enforced a complete siege - land, air, and sea. All border crossings are under Israeli control. No foreign journalists are allowed in. No international aid convoys are permitted entry. The naval blockade remains fully in place. Nothing goes in. No one gets out.
This isn’t a humanitarian crisis. It’s a man-made famine, engineered with bureaucratic precision.
The United Nations and the International Peace Conference have both confirmed that Gaza is now in Stage 5 famine - mass starvation. Over 70% of farmland has been destroyed. Water desalination plants have been bombed or stripped of fuel. Most people drink salted or contaminated water, if they drink at all.
Incredibly, a handful of local journalists - contracted by international outlets like AFP and Al Jazeera - continue to report from the ground. They earn steady incomes covering the collapse of their own society. Imagine being paid to write dispatches while your neighbors eat grass and your city turns to rubble. It’s not journalism; it’s survivor testimony.
Israel, as the occupying power, is obligated under the Fourth Geneva Convention to ensure the civilian population has access to food, water, and medical care. Instead, it has deliberately denied all three.
It has also defied two separate rulings by the International Court of Justice - in January and March 2024 - ordering it to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza and to take all measures to prevent acts of genocide. Israel ignored both.
Let’s be clear: this is not just a moral failure - it is a blatant, ongoing crime. Starvation as a method of warfare is prohibited under international humanitarian law. It is also a war crime under the Rome Statute. Yet Israel continues to tighten the noose with no meaningful consequences.
While Gaza starves, the West Bank is being carved up like a carcass. The Israeli Knesset’s non-binding vote to annex the territory - paired with an explosion in settlement construction and military raids - has shattered any pretense of a viable Palestinian state. France may recognize Palestine in September, but by then, there may be no Palestine left to recognize - just disconnected fragments, besieged and buried.
France’s announcement throws into harsh relief a more damning truth: the international community is not failing - it is colluding. Under the Genocide Convention, states have a duty to prevent genocide, not just condemn it after the fact. Under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine, they must act when a population faces mass atrocity crimes.
And yet, the global response has been a mix of hand-wringing and half-measures. The aid blockade remains in place. Arms shipments to Israel continue. The ICJ rulings are ignored. No sanctions, no embargoes, no meaningful action.
Let’s not sugarcoat it: by allowing Israel to use starvation as a weapon, the world is participating in a genocide.
France’s vow to recognize Palestine is not meaningless - but it is grotesquely mistimed. Recognition is not rescue. It will not feed the starving or shelter the displaced. It will not bring back the dead. Without urgent action to break the siege, flood Gaza with aid, and enforce international law, France’s recognition becomes not an act of justice - but a eulogy.
When Macron raises the Palestinian flag in September, the world should ask: is he saluting a sovereign nation - or honoring the victims we all abandoned?
If the answer is the latter, then this is not diplomacy. It’s complicity.