Ireland, Spain and Norway recognised a Palestinian state last year. Macron has insisted he would only recognise a Palestinian state without Hamas — the same stance as the UK. How is that going?
In an open letter to Macron The Elders a group of former senior UN diplomats, say:
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recognition is “an essential transformative step towards peace” that should be taken as a matter of principle, divorced from negotiations over the ultimate form of Palestinian statehood and how and when Hamas should be disarmed.
Meanwhile Gift to Hamas
Anne-Claire Legendre, the president’s adviser on the Middle East, has said the conference “must mark a transformative milestone for the effective implementation of the two-state solution. We must move from words to deeds, and we must move from the end of the war in Gaza to the end of the conflict.”
She met Israeli officials this week to discuss the conference and Israel’s often cloudy long-term vision for the region. She also met the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Mustafa.
Israeli newspapers reported the travelling French officials as saying: “The recognition of a Palestinian state remains on the table, but not as a product of the conference. This will remain a bilateral subject between states.”
The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, who is expected to attend the conference, is under massive backbench pressure to do more to punish Israel and is, at minimum, being asked flesh out the conditions for the UK recognition of a Palestinian state.
Hamish Falconer, the Middle East minister, told MPs this week the UK thinking was evolving.
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“One reason that the traditional position of the UK government has been that the recognition of a Palestinian state should come at the end, or during, a two-state solution process was the hope that we would move towards a two-state solution,”
“Many minds have been changed because of the rhetoric of the Israeli government — the clear statements by so many that they are no longer committed to a two-state solution.”
But the British are looking for firm undertakings at the conference on the future government of Palestine, including the exclusion of Hamas from any future governance of Gaza, which is something Hamas itself has appeared to accept in the various plans drawn up by Arab states.
A growing number of Conservative Members of Parliament have broken with their frontbench on the issue and now back recognition, including the former attorney general Sir Jeremy Wright.
