-Analysis-
PARIS — What do Mahmoud Abbas and Emmanuel Macron have in common? Both the Palestinian and French presidents have been sidelined by Donald Trump’s plan for the future of Gaza — and both believe it cannot succeed without them. That was the backdrop to their meeting on Tuesday at the Élysée Palace.
There was a subtle game being played to fit within the parameters set by both the Trump plan and the Franco-Saudi initiative presented to the United Nations. However, the two plans are contradictory on certain points, particularly in their final objectives.
Paris remains firmly committed to the two-state solution, relying on Abbas’s Palestinian Authority to achieve it. The Trump plan, by contrast, offers no clear endgame: it makes no connection between Gaza and the West Bank, and mentions the Palestinian Authority only in passing.
For the time being, however, it is Trump’s plan that is being implemented, at least in its first phase, which is the ceasefire that has been in effect for a month.
That is the core ambiguity of Tuesday’s statements in Paris. France and the Palestinian Authority are moving forward without any guarantee they will ever be included in the reality on the ground. A joint committee was set up to discuss “consolidating the State of Palestine” and drafting a new Palestinian constitution. But that state exists only on paper, and the constitution will matter only if the state itself ever becomes real.
Future uncertainties
Without actually voicing it, neither Macron nor Abbas believe that Trump’s plan will reach its second phase, which calls for the establishment of institutions in Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas. The American plan favors a technocratic Palestinian government, which is slow to emerge and will be supervised by Trump himself, as well as an international task force that is as yet undefined.
The obstacles are considerable, and without a Palestinian partner, the Americans will not succeed. France maintains that, despite all its weaknesses, the Palestinian Authority is the only possible partner. However, neither Israel nor the Trump administration is in favor of this at this stage.
As far as Israel is concerned, it is wrong for France to keep the idea of a Palestinian state alive.
The aim of the Paris Summit was to state loud and clear that France and the Palestinian Authority are working on ideas that could prove to be useful when Washington admits that its flawed plan has reached an impasse. It is a political gamble that is far from certain to pay off.
Final say
The Macron-Abbas meeting was criticized Tuesday by the Israeli ambassador to France, which is unsurprising: as far as Israel is concerned, it is wrong for France to keep the idea of a Palestinian state alive, something that Netanyahu’s government absolutely does not want.
Macron notably welcomed Abbas as President of Palestine, no longer as President of the Palestinian Authority, which is a semantic shift since France’s recognition of the Palestinian state on September 22.
However, the Paris agreement is far from the reality on the ground: half of Gaza is back under Hamas control, and the other half is occupied by the Israeli army. The Franco-Palestinian option offers an alternative, but without the means to impose it. After all, the final say still lies with Washington, to which the Paris appeal was really directed.