Will Emmanuel Macron back away from recognizing Palestine on September 22?

French president Emmanuel Macron has so repeatedly vowed in recent weeks to grant de jure recognition to Palestine on September 22, to coincide with the United Nations General Assembly, that reversing course at the eleventh hour seems highly unlikely. 

But politics and diplomacy are never short of surprises.

He first floated the idea of such a diplomatic initiative last April, suggesting it could unfold in June under the auspices of a United Nations conference on Gaza. 

Both the conference and the recognition announcement were later pushed to July, however, after the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran from June 13 to 22.

Mr. Macron reaffirmed his commitment in a personal letter to Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, on July 24. Yet when the conference finally convened on July 29, he found he had failed to secure the broad consensus he had anticipated. As a result, the recognition was again deferred—this time to the September session of the General Assembly.

President Macron seems all the less able to back down as this initiative is virtually the only political “success” he can currently claim. The credit-rating agencies—Fitch, Moody’s and S&P—keep downgrading France’s sovereign rating. Two successive prime ministers have been forced to resign in less than ten months. Strikes, protests and outbreaks of violence have taken on an almost endemic character.

Foreign policy—traditionally regarded as the president’s domaine réservé under French constitutional practice—is faring little better: Mr. Macron has failed to establish himself as Europe’s leading voice on issues such as the war in Ukraine or the creation of a credible European defense policy.

That leaves Palestine. In domestic political terms, the pledge to grant formal recognition to the State of Palestine taps into the “Free Palestine” cult prevalent among the ever-growing Muslim community and Generation Z youngsters – the voters of the future.

On the international stage, Mr. Macron has managed to present himself as a leader on this issue. His stance appears to have emboldened other Western countries that had until recently refrained from taking anti-Israel lines —Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands.

It has likely contributed as well to the United Nations’ adoption, on September 12, by an overwhelming majority (142 votes in favor, 10 against and 10 abstentions), of a resolution “for the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine.” While stopping short of granting the so-called State of Palestine full UN membership, the resolution recommends that such an outcome be pursued in the future.

But for all that, Mr. Macron cannot ignore either that other powerful factors argue against the outright recognition he is championing. 

First and foremost, the United States see it as an unfriendly encroachment on its own efforts to terminate the Gaza war and extend the Abraham Accords of 2019.

Major European countries, such as Germany and Italy, that might be willing, hypothetically, to recognize a reformed and moderate Palestinian State under Abbas, fear that a declaration of recognition under the present circumstances, as the war in Gaza lingers and the remaining Israeli hostages are still not returned, would put the European Union recklessly on the side of Hamas against Israel.

Moreover, it would anoint Hamas, rather than Abbas’ Palestinian Authority, as the true representative of the Palestinian cause. 

Something that, in turn, might warrant a new upsurge of Iran-aligned Islamist militancy throughout the Islamic world, including the immigrant Muslim communities in Europe. It is not without reason, some observers say, that Hamas loudly applauded Mr. Macron’s move.

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ website, France-Diplomatie, has actually published at a very early stage - April 24 - a list of prerequisites to recognition: reforming the Mahmoud Abbas led Palestinian Authority, which is usually seen as the embryonic Palestinian State, demilitarizing Hamas, and exacting a formal recognition of Israel as a legitimate State from all Palestinian players involved. 

No serious Middle East expert could believe that such conditions could be met instantly.

Next comes a French constitutional issue concerning the days immediately ahead. Noëlle Lenoir, a former judge on France’s Constitutional Council and regarded as one of the country’s foremost experts in the field, observed in a September 11 interview with the Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom that, in the absence of a duly constituted government—since the new prime minister, Sébastien Lecornu, has yet to appoint his cabinet—France is at present unable to take a decision such as recognizing a foreign state.

Finally, President Macron may want to reflect on the date he has chosen. 

This year, September 22 coincides with the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year—an austere holy day during which, according to tradition, God judges humanity and determines its fate. 

To proclaim the recognition of Palestine on that day, in what many of its supporters portray as an attempt to “cancel” Israel, would amount to adding insult to injury.

In any case, the very fact that the French president felt compelled on September 18 to “explain himself” —granting a lengthy interview to Israel’s main television channel, Keshet 12—and that he sought to persuade his hosts of the soundness of his initiative suggests a certain unease on his part.