France recognises Palestine

[PaxAeterna]

A big deal.
Macron said

The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civil population is saved

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/07/24/macron-anuncia-que-franca-ira-reconhecer-estado-da-palestina

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@SomeWomanSomewhereI personally support a one state solution but: if the two state orthodoxy is to hold it will have to be "Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem as its capital) with some plausible mechanism of travel between them".

The contentious status of Jerusalem as a capital for Israel and for a Palestinian state is perhaps the one issue about which there is little consensus for a specific plan. The Palestinians have long made known their desire for (East?) Jerusalem to serve as the capital of a Palestinian state.

Israel's desire to maintain Jerusalem as its capital is no less strong;

I can't see how these diametrically opposing views can ever be integrated.

Ghandi postulated the idea of a "Land Bridge" between East and West Pakistan in 1946 but before any plans could be implemented he was assassinated by a Hindu extremist

It is genuinely not THAT contentious: Israel claims it has annexed East Jerusalem (but, crucially: has not given citizenship to its Palestinian citizens). The US under Trump recognised that one. Literally the entire rest of the world - us (UK) included - considers it occupied Palestinian territory.

The original UN partition plan envisaged for all of Jerusalem to be an international zone.

"There is a Geneva Accord in place for the corridor, that could be enacted."

So who polices this corridor?

"What do you suggest should happen?"

That's above my paygrade.

What does a one state solution look like to you @mrssmurfspointyhat in practical terms - governance, equality, rebuilding Gaza etc

https://geneva-accord.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/corridor.pdf

Practical guidance here

@SomeWomanSomewhere
"The original UN partition plan envisaged for all of Jerusalem to be an international zone."

The Partition Plan was not implemented, being firstly rejected by Palestinian and other Arab leaders and then overtaken by the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which left Jerusalem split between Israel (West Jerusalem) and Jordan (East Jerusalem).

In 2012, the European Parliament expressed majority support, and the UN General Assembly expressed overwhelming support for the view that Jerusalem should be a dual capital, with an even split between Israel and the State of Palestine, although exact positions are varied.

I hope you don't holiday in Dubai or Qatar. This puerile talk of of sunset strips in Gaza..oh please. Those rich Arab nations DO build those dreams on their own lucrative turf, and they give not one fuck about their 'brothers' in Gaza. The nations could bail out their fellow countrymen tomorrow, so why don't they.

Correct ... my point was: the notion that Jerusalem is "disputed" is technically true but extremely misleading in that literally nobody except Israel and, since Trump I, the US even claims East Jerusalem is Israeli.

Wouldn't be the first divided city in history either.

Arguably, any sustainable and just solution will need to ensure equal access for religious purposes (the Old City of Jerusalem being home to holy sites for all of Islam, Judaism, and Christianity).

My experience leads me to empathise more with the women and children in this situation, it is not an attempt to demonise Palestinian men.

Unfortunately those in need of convincing will not be swayed in their belief that Palestinian man = Hamas operative intent on killing all Jews.

Some may however be moved to recognisingnewborns, infants and their mothers as non-terrorist humans who are starving and need medical attention. How could they not?

They seem to manage quite fine on a diet of "mothers are proud to birth cannon fodder and kids would grow up to be terrorists".

The partition plan was rejected by the Palestinian Jewish people as well. That’s why they started the Nakba in 1947, displacing half a million non Jewish Palestinians through terrorism and massacres of villages. The British did half hearted attempts to combat the Jewish terrorist groups as they were withdrawing anyway. (Note- I am merely repeating how these groups were defined at the time- the British had designated them as terrorists).

By the time Israel was formally declared a state, over a quarter million non Jewish Palestinian refugees had fled to the neighbouring Arab countries, which is why the Arab-Israeli war started. Read their cable to the UN declaring the war.

Post the 1948 war, the Arab league had secured some of the lands set aside in the partition for a Palestinian state and then declared they were holding those lands as conservators until the UNSC would establish the Palestinian State. What followed were twenty years of the US blocking all attempts to formally recognise a Palestinian State. Then in 1967 Israel started the 6 day war and seized all the lands set aside for Palestinians and have occupied them to the present day.

How? How could these nations “bail out their Gazan brothers”, and which nations do you mean?

"Wouldn't be the first divided city in history either." Yup, Berlin was a rip-roaring success wasn't it? (Sarcasm)

IMO as long as Hamas is in the mix there will be no peaceful solution.

Since the latest conflict began, Hamas leaders have taken a harder line in public, now explicitly calling for the destruction of Israel (and therefore openly rejecting a two state solution).
Senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told Lebanese TV on 24 October that “we will repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated.”
“Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” he said. “That nation must go because it poses a military and political threat to the security of the Arab and Islamic countries and must be destroyed.”

At the time of writing I do not know if senior Hamas officials are in Qatar as there was some talk of them being asked to leave.

That’s what happens when you repeatedly assassinate leaders and their families (children included) over and over while supposedly negotiating peace. You get embittered fanatics who only want revenge stepping up to lead.

edited- I agree Hamas have hardened their hatred even though you’re quoting a Hamas terrorist who left Gaza months before the war started, hasn’t been back and he said that particular comment in October of 2023 less than one month into the war.

My only hope is that the protests by Israelis in tel aviv etc will have some impact. We cannot have a manmade ‘famine’ with Gazan kids starving. No decent human can support this any more surely.

As have Israeli leaders.

"Preventing any two state solution" is and always has been Netanyahu's personal brand.

But you won't get me to argue for division here, because, again: not my preferred outcome.

What on earth are you talking about?
Has anyone mentioned the UAE or any other Middle East or Arab nation?? I’ve been through those places. Why on earth would I holiday there? Why? What on earth are you on?

I'm not sure if you've deliberately posted so much false information or if you've just got your knowledge from propaganda sources but this retelling of history is just garbage.

1. “The partition plan was rejected by Palestinian Jews too” - Completely false.

The Jewish leadership accepted the 1947 UN Partition Plan. The Arab leadership rejected it outright, not because of borders, but because they refused to accept any Jewish state at all, in any form.

1. 'The British did half hearted attempts to combat the Jewish terrorist groups

Arab terrorism started long before 1947' - huh?????

Between the 1920s and 1940s, Arab violence against Jews in British Mandatory Palestine was relentless. It went on for something like 18 years before the Jews retaliated!

The 1920 Nebi Musa riots and 1921 Jaffa riots
The 1929, the Hebron massacre s
The Arab Revolt.

Thousands were killed.

So, by 1947, the idea that Arab violence was a “response” to Jewish actions is historical nonsense. The violence predated the state, the UN plan, and any war - motivated by rejection of Jewish sovereignty, period.

1. The Nakba wasn’t an act of Jewish aggression- it was the result of Arab war.

As soon as the UN passed the partition plan in 1947, Arab militias began attacking Jewish convoys, farms, and towns. This was civil war, initiated by the Arab side. When Israel declared independence, five Arab states invaded with the open goal of wiping it off the map.

In that war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled, but not solely because of Israel. Many fled under orders from Arab leaders, expecting to return after a swift victory.

And yes, some were displaced in the war, just as hundreds of thousands of Jews were ethnically cleansed from Arab countries -but somehow those Jewish refugees are never mentioned.

1. The British didn’t just oppose “Jewish terrorism.”

They cracked down hard on Jewish militias, yes - but they also armed and backed the Arab Legion. The British weren’t neutral -they were trying to keep oil-rich Arab allies on side.

1. The Arab-Israeli war wasn’t about refugees - it was about erasing Israel.

The Arab League’s communications were clear: their goal wasn’t to establish a Palestinian state, it was to destroy the newly declared Jewish one. And let’s be clear: if they’d succeeded, there wouldn’t be a “two-state solution”—there’d be no Israel at all.

1. “Israel seized Palestinian lands in 1967” — garbage did they

In 1967, Israel was responding to blockades, threats of annihilation, and massed Arab armies on its bloody borders. The war was defensive, not imperial. The West Bank was illegally annexed by Jordan, and Gaza was under Egyptian military control. There was no Palestinian state for Israel to “seize.” After winning the war, Israel even offered to return land in exchange for peace, and was met with the Arab League’s infamous “Three No’s”: No peace, no recognition, no negotiations.

1. “The U.S. blocked recognition of Palestine for 20 years” ... what????

There was nothing to recognise!!!! Between 1948 and the late 1980s, no Arab country established a Palestinian state, even when they controlled the territory.

Your narrative erases decades of Arab-initiated violence, flips the timeline of cause and effect, and whitewashes the repeated Arab rejection of Jewish statehood which still continues!!!!!

I am very worried about people. These are easy facts to read about, so where are you reading these versions???

Try keeping up. Are you new here?

It’s not false information, it’s all true and fills in the gaps in what you have been taught.

1, “The Jewish leadership accepted the 1947 UN Partition Plan.”
Not the Palestinian Jewish leaders, only the US Jewish leaders accepted it. No leader native to the Palestinian mandate was included in the UN partition discussion and so all rejected it. The partition was drawn up by the British on behalf of non Jewish Palestinians and by US Jewish leaders on behalf of the Jewish Palestinians.

“The Arab leadership rejected it outright, not because of borders, but because they refused to accept any Jewish state at all, in any form.”. Yes, that is why all Palestinian leaders- Jewish and nonJewish- rejected the partition being dictated to them by the UN. Firstly because they were not consulted and secondly because neither party wanted a two state solution.

”The Nakba wasn’t an act of Jewish aggression- it was the result of Arab war.”
Very odd for the Nakba to have started a full 6 months prior to the start of the Arab war if it was a result. The Nakba was a cause of the 1948 Arab war, this is well documented historical fact.

“In 1967, Israel was responding to blockades, threats of annihilation, and massed Arab armies on its bloody borders. The war was defensive, not imperial.” This is bollocks. The truth is that “Israel launched a preemptive strike, resulting in significant territorial gains, including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights, and Sinai Peninsula,..” as for blockades- if you are referring to the Suez crisis of 1959, Israel invaded Egypt because they disputed Egypts right to charge a toll to use the Canal for shipping Egypt had said pay or sail round Africa.

“The Arab League’s communications were clear: their goal wasn’t to establish a Palestinian state, it was to destroy the newly declared Jewish one”

Read it. They didn’t want to destroy Israel. Their armies had orders to NOT encroach on any land set aside for Israel and they stayed only in the areas partitioned for the Palestinian state. That is how and why Israel ended up in 1948 with more land than the UN partition gave them:

”Now that the Mandate over Palestine has come to an end, leaving no legally constituted authority behind in order to administer law and order in the country and afford the necessary and adequate protection to life and property, the Arab States declare as follows:
(a) The right to set up a Government in Palestine pertains to its inhabitants under the principles of self-determination recognized by the Covenant of the League of Nations as well as the United Nations Charter;
(b) Peace and order have been completely upset in Palestine, and, in consequence of Jewish aggression, approximately over a quarter of a million of the Arab population have been compelled to leave their homes and emigrate to neighbouring Arab countries. The prevailing events in Palestine exposed the concealed aggressive intentions of the Zionists and their imperialistic motives, as clearly shown in their acts committed upon those peaceful Arabs and villagers of Deer Yasheen, Tiberias, and other places, as well as by their encroachment upon the building and bodies of the inviolable consular codes, manifested by their attack upon the Consulate in Jerusalem.
(c) The Mandatory has already announced that on the termination of the Mandate it will no longer be responsible for the maintenance of law and order in Palestine except in the camps and areas actually occupied by its forces, and only to the extent necessary for the security of those forces and their withdrawal. This leaves Palestine absolutely without any administrative authority entitled to maintain, and capable of maintaining, a machinery of administration of the country adequate for the purpose of ensuring due protection of life and property. There is further the threat that this lawlessness may spread to the neighbouring Arab States where feeling is already very tense on account of the prevailing conditions in Palestine. The respective members of the Arab League, and as Members of the United Nations at the same time, feel gravely perturbed and deeply concerned over this situation.
(d) It was the sincere wish of the Arab States that the United Nations might succeed in arriving at a fair and just solution of the Palestine problem, thus establishing a lasting peace for the country under the precepts of the democratic principles and in conformity with the Covenant of the League of Nations and the United Nations Charter.
(e) They are responsible in any ... by virtue of their responsibility as members of the Arab League which is a regional organization within the meaning of Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations. The recent disturbances in Palestine further constitute a serious and direct threat to peace and security within the territories of the Arab States themselves. For these reasons, and considering that the security of Palestine is a sacred trust for them, and out of anxiousness to check the further deterioration of the prevailing conditions and to prevent the spread of disorder and lawlessness into the neighbouring Arab lands, and in order to fill the vacuum created by the termination of the Mandate and the failure to replace it by any legally constituted authority, the Arab Governments find themselves compelled to intervene for the sole purpose of restoring peace and security and establishing law and order in Palestine.
The Arab States recognize that the independence and sovereignty of Palestine which was so far subject to the British Mandate has now, with the termination of the Mandate, become established in fact, and maintain that the lawful inhabitants of Palestine are alone competent and entitled to set up an administration in Palestine for the discharge of all governmental functions without any external interference. As soon as that stage is reached the intervention of the Arab States, which is confined to the restoration of peace and establishment of law and order, shall be put an end to, and the sovereign State of Palestine will be competent in co-operation with the other States members of the Arab League, to take every step for the promotion of the welfare and security of its peoples and territory.
The Governments of the Arab States hereby confirm at this stage the view that had been repeatedly declared by them on previous occasions, such as the London Conference and before the United Nations mainly, the only fair and just solution to the problem of Palestine is the creation of United State of Palestine based upon the democratic principles which will enable all its inhabitants to enjoy equality before the law, and which would guarantee to all minorities the safeguards provided for in all democratic constitutional States affording at the same time full protection and free access to Holy Places. The Arab States emphatically and repeatedly declare that their intervention in Palestine has been prompted solely by the considerations and for the aims set out above and that they are not inspired by any other motive whatsoever. They are, therefore, confident that their action will receive the support of the United Nations as tending to further the aims and ideals of the United Nations as set out in its Charter.
Abdul Razek Azzam Pasha, Secretary-General of the League of Arab States UN Doc. S/745, reprinted in 3 UN SCOR, Supp. for May 1948, at 83-88”

Patronising much?

By showing solidarity instead of being greedy fat cats, building on their empires. I suppose they don't need to feign empathy when they have got western middle class liberals doing their work for them.

Well you should know- much.

“Between the 1920s and 1940s, Arab violence against Jews in British Mandatory Palestine was relentless. It went on for something like 18 years before the Jews retaliated!”

There was back and forth terrorism on both sides largely due to the fifth Aaliyah from 1929 to 1940 in which around 250,000 Jewish refugees illegally entered the Mandate and started squatting/settling on private Palestinian land ( land they did not buy b/c they were refugees fleeing Hitler)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Aliyah