France’s Naïve Leap: Recognition Without Reality

While terror still holds hostages, Macron rewards fiction over fact as Israel chooses resilience, renewal and the future

Just when you think the worst of Western naïveté has passed with the departure of Justin Trudeau, here comes President Emmanuel Macron, eager to don the mantle of peace visionary – by recognizing a Palestinian state. Not tomorrow. Not after negotiations. But by September, on the global stage of the United Nations General Assembly.

Honestly, it would be laughable if it were not so dangerous.

I read Macron’s announcement twice. Once in disbelief, and again just to be sure I had not misread it. “France will recognize the State of Palestine,” he wrote on X, as if peace could be summoned with a tweet. As if Hamas was not still holding hostages. As if October 7 had not happened.

Let me be clear: This is not a policy move. It is a performance. A pageant of moral posturing. France is playing to the gallery, appealing to restless global activists and restless domestic politics. But peace built on posturing is no peace at all. And certainly not when it comes at the expense of Israel’s security and dignity.

France, the country that prides itself on being the intellectual heart of Europe, is willfully ignoring reality. And the reality is this: There is no functioning Palestinian state to recognize. There is a fragmented leadership, an armed terror group in control of Gaza, and a deeply indoctrinated population fed on hate. To recognize a “state” under those conditions is not an act of diplomacy. It is an abdication of responsibility.

The Israelis know the price of illusions. They have paid it in blood. They have seen what happens when the West rewards terror with legitimacy. Gaza was the lesson, and Israel will not forget it.

And then there is the symbolism. France, home to Europe’s largest Jewish community, choosing this moment – less than two years after the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust – to recognize a Palestinian state that still includes Hamas in its governing structures? It is not just offensive. It is profoundly tone-deaf.

Worse, the UK is hinting at doing the same. What happened to moral clarity? What happened to alliances built on shared values? Do the hostages still in Gaza mean nothing? Does the rape and slaughter of Israeli civilians not count in this calculus of “peace”?

Let me be frank: The West is sleepwalking through a moral minefield. And Israel is being told to stay quiet, play nice, and pretend the ground is not exploding beneath us.

In Israel, people often say that the Jewish state is not just a country, it is a declaration. A declaration of survival, of freedom, of faith in the future. Recognizing a Palestinian state born out of terror, without reforms, without peace, without even a partner – that is not diplomacy. That is erasure.

But in the face of all this, I’m reminded of something deeper, something Israel has always had and will never lose: resolve. Israel’s story has never hinged on who chooses to recognize it. From the deserts to the high-tech towers of Tel Aviv, its people built this nation with their own hands. They shaped miracles out of sand and memory. And they will keep building.

Because this is what resilience looks like.

And this is how renewal begins.

If France wants to indulge in performative politics, so be it. But Israel will continue to innovate its future. While Macron prepares his UN speech, Israel’s reservists return to their homes and businesses, its engineers write the next code breakthrough, and its entrepreneurs imagine what is next in cybersecurity, health tech, and defense.

The real peacebuilders are not at the United Nations. They are in Sderot and in Start-Up Nation labs. They are the lone soldiers who fight with heart and then start businesses that serve the world. They are the volunteers in the fields and the families who keep going despite the empty chairs at their dinner tables.

I still believe in the promise of peace. But peace without truth is just another word for capitulation. You do not build peace by rewarding lies or violence. You build peace by standing with your allies, facing down terror, and insisting that coexistence must be built on mutual recognition, not just of rights, but of responsibilities.

So, to France I would say: if you truly wish to help, then help dismantle terror tunnels, not reward those who dig them. Help free hostages, not embolden hostage-takers. Help rebuild trust, not destroy what little remains of it.

Recognition is a powerful diplomatic tool. But used wrongly, it becomes a weapon, a weapon against truth, against peace, and against the very values France claims to uphold.

So, as Macron steps up to the UN podium in September, I hope he looks into the eyes of Israeli parents whose children are still not home. I hope he remembers the burnt kibbutzim, the Nova festival, the blood on the floor of homes. And I hope, just for a moment, he asks himself: is this the peace I meant to build?

In the meantime, Israel will continue on its path, scarred but steadfast. Misunderstood, perhaps, but undeterred. Israel’s journey is not defined by others’ recognition, but by its unshakable will to survive and to thrive.

Resilience and renewal. That is its language.

And no tweet from Paris can change that.