Macron’s recognition of Palestine leaves Albanese in a corner

The rapidly developing international response to Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank has left the Albanese government flatfooted, with French president Emmanuel Macron announcing this morning that France would recognise a Palestinian state.

French recognition of Palestine — “There is no alternative”, Macron emphasised in his statement — has been flagged by the president for several months, but appeared to have been put on hold in recent weeks in response, according to Reuters, to pressure from Canada and the UK.

That seems to have changed over the past week in response to growing evidence of mass starvation by Israel of Palestinians: the British media, including right-wing newspapers, have belatedly gone harder on the images of dying children coming out of Gaza (and far harder than Australia’s mainstream media have been prepared to go), and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has faced his own revolt on the genocide, with cabinet ministers urging the UK to also recognise Palestine.

Starmer overnight released a statement significantly stronger than the one the UK, Australia, France, Canada and 24 other countries released earlier this week. “The suffering and starvation unfolding in Gaza is unspeakable and indefensible,” Starmer said. “While the situation has been grave for some time, it has reached new depths and continues to worsen. We are witnessing a humanitarian catastrophe.”

The British leader said he would speak to Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz — the “E3 partners” — shortly “where we will discuss what we can do urgently to stop the killing and get people the food they desperately need … We all agree on the pressing need for Israel to change course and allow the aid that is desperately needed to enter Gaza without delay.”

But the UK appeared to suggest further delay for Palestinian statehood until after a ceasefire: “We are clear that statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people. A ceasefire will put us on a path to the recognition of a Palestinian state and a two-state solution which guarantees peace and security for Palestinians and Israelis.”

Macron’s promised recognition goes still further. Citing “commitments made to me by the president of the Palestinian Authority”, he said:

I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine. I will make this solemn announcement before the United Nations General Assembly this coming September. The urgent priority today is to end the war in Gaza and to bring relief to the civilian population.

Those Palestinian Authority commitments include a willingness to take control of Gaza, to hold elections in 2026, and “fundamental reform”, reflecting the notorious corruption of the authority. In his letter to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Macron noted that Abbas had also called for the immediate release of hostages, the disarming of Hamas, and its withdrawal from governance in Gaza, along with condemnation of the October 7, 2023 attacks.

The sudden shift by the UK and France — which may potentially go further after the E3 call tonight — leaves Australia looking weak and under the thumb of the US and the pro-Israel lobby. Despite Labor’s formal party policy being to recognise Palestine, the Albanese government has preferred to emphasise its minimal role and inability to influence events in the Middle East, while refusing to call out genocide or ethnic cleansing, sanction the Netanyahu government or indicate when it would consider recognition. It has treated the issue as an unwanted foreign policy distraction, in the hope that concern within the community about the slaughter of Palestinians would fade away.

Just this week, Labor was more focused on condemning Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi for holding up a placard calling for sanctions on Israel than in taking any meaningful action in response to events in Gaza and the West Bank.

The actions by one of Australia’s closest allies, and by another ally in Macron — now the effective leader of the West after the abandonment of global leadership by the US — show other governments are prepared to respond to the growing fury within their electorates about Israel’s atrocities. The contrast with Albanese’s timid, mangerialist approach to genocide and ethnic cleansing is becoming more stark by the day.