Bill Emmott
War makes bystanders feel powerless. Throughout the so-far 22 months of brutal conflict that began with Hamas’s slaughter and abduction of Israelis in October 2023, Europeans have looked and felt impotent.This has only partly been because they have also been divided; mainly, it has been because their words, brave or not, proved irrelevant. The question now is whether the decision by France’s President Emmanuel Macron to join 11 other EU countries in giving diplomatic recognition to a Palestinian state will be yet another demonstration of European powerlessness and irrelevance.
There is a chance that this French initiative could prove different. That chance does not depend much on European unity or disunity, but rather on whether France and others can build a partnership with Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, that is powerful and determined enough to force Israel and the United States to change course. The chance currently looks a small one, but it may be worth taking.The timing of President Macron’s announcement was no accident. On July 28-29, France and Saudi Arabia are scheduled to co-chair a ministerial conference at the United Nations in New York on the Palestinian question, which is intended to be followed by a conference of heads of state in New York in September, alongside the UN General Assembly.
The French initiative is intended to inject momentum and an air of diplomatic seriousness into a process that otherwise looked destined to fail. It may still fail. But the small chance that it could make progress depends on France and others convincing the Arab leaders, especially Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, that by working together, they might be able to make the Americans take them seriously.Which really depends on Saudi Arabia’s crown prince showing the courage and determination to press America’s Donald Trump to take the idea of a Palestinian state seriously.
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