French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday rebuffed the United States’s argument that offering support for a Palestinian state undermines attempts to end the war in Gaza.
Macron’s decision this summer to recognize a Palestinian state prompted Secretary of State Marco Rubio to issue a warning that the “reckless” move disincentivized Hamas from making a deal with Israel to end the war in Gaza.
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The French president spurned Rubio’s concerns during an interview with CBS News in Paris. Macron explained he believes recognizing a Palestinian state hurts, not helps, Hamas, the terrorist organization that has controlled Gaza for years.
“The objective of Hamas is absolutely not to create a Palestinian state,” he said, adding that he viewed “reckless” as “an excessive word” for the secretary of state to use.
“The objective of Hamas is to destroy Israel, to convince the maximum number of people that they have no chance to have peace and stability, and precisely a Palestinian state. And to kill the maximum number of Israeli people,” Macron continued. “And this is why, if we want to stop this war, if we want to isolate Hamas, the recognition process and the peace plan, which goes with this recognition process, is a precondition.”
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. The terrorist group murdered roughly 1,200 civilians in the surprise raid on a music festival, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to launch a war on Hamas’s operations in Gaza.
Attitudes from the international community have increasingly shifted against Netanyahu in recent months, including from countries traditionally supportive of Israel, such as France and Great Britain. Those countries have said they will back the creation of a Palestinian state amid accusations from the United Nations that Israel is carrying out the genocide of Palestinians living in Gaza and that the war has led to a famine in the embattled territory.
While President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to make peace in the region, the U.S. has continued to take Israel’s side. Hamas, not Israel, is responsible for prolonging the war in Gaza and the suffering of Palestinians because it has rejected multiple U.S.-backed peace proposals accepted by Netanyahu, the State Department has argued.
“The minute — the day — that the French announced the thing they did, that day, Hamas walked away from the negotiating table,” Rubio said earlier this month. “They immediately increased their demands and walked away and stopped negotiating.”
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France and Great Britain’s actions to recognize a Palestinian state are viewed as efforts that would elevate the Palestinian Authority, which is based in the West Bank. The PA, which has been criticized for its own terrorist activity, is a rival of Hamas, having long battled for control over the Gaza Strip.
Rubio believes Macron’s move to back a Palestinian state could embolden Hamas to stand firm on staking out in Gaza and reduce chances for a peace deal.