Roger Cohen
NY Times, July 25, 2025
“Israel looks to the United States for its security, not to Europe.”
In announcing French recognition of Palestinian statehood, President Emmanuel Macron of France expressed his growing outrage at Palestinian deaths and starvation in Gaza, but also incurred the hostility of the United States, Israel and much of the large French Jewish community.
That is a considerable price to pay for a decision he portrayed as essential to preserve some chance of a two-state peace, but Mr. Macron detests inertia and often acts in isolation. He has lost patience with President Trump’s America and has indicated that he believes he has a moral obligation to confront Israel’s devastation of Gaza.
Certainly, he has placed himself in a delicate position, taking a step that a succession of French presidents had shunned, at a moment when Hamas has not disarmed in Gaza and Palestinian statehood has never seemed more remote.