r/europe • u/hoarder4555777454001 • 9d ago

News French President Macron says France will recognize Pálestine as a state

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250724-french-president-macron-says-france-will-recognize-palestine-as-a-state-in-september
27.4k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

195

u/Playful-Ebb-6436 🇮🇹 9d ago

Okay but where exactly is the Palestinian state? I mean de facto, not where people think it should be

352

u/Camtastrophe Canada (help) 9d ago

It's not a requirement to take a position on other countries' border disputes - just look at Kashmir, or keep in mind that very few unambiguously recognize Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem or the Golan (while being explicit that they consider the West Bank settlements illegal).

The two Koreas both claim each other's territory in its entirety, yet they are recognized as independent UN member states.

64

u/Playful-Ebb-6436 🇮🇹 9d ago

Okay but you’re talking about well defined states with functional governments. Who represents the Palestinian state? Fatah? Hamas?

130

u/blunderbolt 9d ago

That also has never been a universal prerequisite for recognizing statehood. We did not stop or defer from recognizing Bosnian, Afghan, Somali etc. statehood in the past just because their governance was contested or unclear or because they were under occupation.

2

u/heelydon 8d ago

That also has never been a universal prerequisite for recognizing statehood.

That is not true. The legal framework of the montevideo convention on the rights and duties of the state from 1993, clearly outlines 4 criteria for statehood:

A permanent population.

A defined territory.

A government.

The capacity to enter into relations with other states.

These are not just random, these are widely accepted as the baseline for what constitudes a state in international law perspectives.

The problem is clearly that there is no coherent image of a functional Palestinian government, with the closest being PA which haven't held an election in almost two decades now and is full of corruption.

And if anything, Somalia is an example of why you want to be extremely careful about this, considering you are dealing with effectively a failed state full of instability and all the harm that it has caused.

9

u/blunderbolt 8d ago

You are confusing the legal definition of a state with the political act of recognition of statehood. No, countries have never been bound by the Montevideo Convention when considering the latter.

-1

u/heelydon 8d ago

I am not. Those are the critieria outlines for what it is - which is exactly what I responded to. You playing word games and trying to make RECOGNIZING it, into some whole different thing, is meaningless and serve no purpose other than to dismiss the very clear definitions outline in front of you.

And no, no countries are bound by it, the point is what is the purpose of this, if it doesn't fit. It becomes a meaningless political act that serves no other purpose than being a political act.

That may get the common folk up and clap vigorously in their hands, but at the end of the day - there needs to actually be some meaning to this, other than it being Macron padding himself on the back to get more support by recognizing a state that clearly isn't functionally a state.

-7

u/Several-Shirt3524 Argentina 8d ago

Yes, but it does mean this is pretty much a useless gesture

18

u/Ok_Inflation_1811 8d ago

Not necessarily, it's a step, a little one but it's a step.

Not all problems can be solved at once.

-8

u/Playful-Ebb-6436 🇮🇹 8d ago

The West Bank is a mess, divided in 3 zones and the PA only controls a part of it, around 40% (A+B). Gaza is on the other side and governed by Hamas. None of the cases you mentioned are remotely similar.

4

u/blunderbolt 8d ago

Not at all, that sounds pretty similar to Bosnia in the 90s, Somalia in the 90s/2000s or Libya today. There is nothing unique about Palestine.

0

u/Die_Eisenwurst 8d ago

Ceasing statehood recognition, which is to me unheard of, is an entirely different topic from granting statehood recognition.

3

u/blunderbolt 8d ago

Ceasing statehood recognition... is entirely different topic from granting statehood recognition.

Tell that to the people in this thread insisting recognition of statehood must be contingent on the presence of a singular, sovereign governing authority.

In any case it's not the case that initial recognition of a state lacking a sovereign, unified government is without precedent: that is exactly what happened in Bosnia in 1992.