The French recognition of Palestine is a storm in a teapot. It is inevitable that a Palestinian state should be ultimately recognized, even by a post-Trump USA. Many international organizations and 147 of 193 of UN members already recognize it. More countries and territories recognize Palestine than recognize Kosovo.
The French recognition is a symbolic rebuke to the Netanyahu regime and its brutal policies against the Palestinians. It is an attempt to jumpstart the two-states solution. Most EU countries, perhaps with the exceptions of Germany and Hungary, have already recognized Palestine or will follow suit soon.
The French gesture is a gift to Netanyahu. It affirms his thesis – shared by the majority of Israelis in the wake of October 7 – that the world is out to destroy Israel and the Jews and impose a life-threatening unilateral solution on the Jewish state. It will allow Netanyahu and his far-right supporters to consolidate power, trample over the opposition and civil and human rights, and mobilize the base to make sure that a two-state solution becomes non-feasible (for example, by increasing the pace and extent of settlements in the West Bank).
The US under Trump is already leveraging a campaign against antisemitism to stifle dissent at home. The French grandstanding will legitimize the distancing of the USA from the EU and further military and geopolitical efforts to render the Middle East American under a Pax Americana with Israel as the exclusive regional hegemon. Ultimately, this stratagem will drag Turkey, Egypt, the Gulf States, and Saudi Arabia into the game, creating an anti-American camp pitted against a pro-Israeli alliance. Things will get ugly sooner than we expect.
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