France has given the world so much to admire. The Enlightenment. Impressionism. The croissant. Existentialism, cinema, Sartre. And diplomacy itself, la diplomatie, not just in practice but in vocabulary. From détente to rapprochement, from chargé d’affairesto coup d’état, France has authored the lexicon of conflict resolution and international civility. It’s no accident that diplomats once trained in French and conducted negotiations in the language of Voltaire. Even the word “protocol” traces its roots to the French bureaucratic tradition.
And so it’s with no small irony, no grande ironie, if you will, that the nation that gave us the language of diplomacy has chosen this moment to obliterate its meaning.
In September, when the UN convenes to vote on Palestinian statehood, France’s Macron has stated that it will vote yes. That’s not just a vote for statehood. That’s a vote to canonize mass murder. That’s a vote to reward Hamas with legitimacy for the butchery of Israeli civilians on October 7. It’s as if France took a long, hard look at the blood-soaked massacre of Jews, the beheadings, the burnings, the hostage-taking, and concluded: oui, ça mérite un drapeau.
So let’s drop the facade of entente cordiale and respond in the only diplomatic French phrase America ever truly perfected:
“Fuck you, France.”
Let’s say this plainly: France, and any liberal democracy following in its misguided footsteps (I’m thinking of you Canada, Norway, Spain and Ireland), is preparing to validate a statehood bid born not out of diplomacy, peace-building, or governance, but from the ashes of pogroms live-streamed in HD. We’re not talking about recognition of some theoretical democratic Palestine from the Oslo Accords era, with handshakes on the White House lawn and Nobel Peace Prize photo-ops. We’re talking about now, post-October 7, when Hamas terrorists filmed themselves laughing while executing children and abducting grandmothers. That is what France is legitimizing.
And here’s where the French vocabulary fails entirely. Because there is no savoir-fairein Hamas leadership, no grande stratégie in launching rockets from schoolyards, and certainly no haute diplomatie in using raped hostages as bargaining chips. This isn’t a state-in-waiting. It’s a death cult with a press office.
Of course, the pro-recognition crowd will tell you this is about “hope” for the Palestinian people. And yes, Palestinians deserve hope, and dignity, and freedom from both occupation and the jackboot of Hamas. But giving them a state run by Hamas or even under the shadow of its terror apparatus isn’t hope, it’s abandoning them to another generation of ruin. It’s feeding a broken system with global legitimacy. It’s giving the keys to the asylum to the arsonists inside.
And don’t fall for the diplomatic sleight of hand. France will insist that it supports a two-state solution, but only one state, Israel, is ever asked to make sacrifices. Only one state is expected to bury its dead and then get over it. Only one state is scrutinized for its self-defense, while the other side can massacre civilians and be greeted with standing ovations in university lecture halls.
Let’s be clear about the historical narrative this vote could cement: If October 7 becomes the first chapter in the founding story of the Palestinian state, then the message to the world’s terrorists is simple: kill Jews, get land. Hostage-taking becomes a tactic of statecraft. Pogroms become policy. And liberal democracies, those paragons of moral superiority, become the enablers.
If France votes “yes,” it won’t just be voting to recognize Palestine. It will be voting to normalize Hamas. To elevate them. To institutionalize their ideology. It will be drawing a straight line from the ashes of Nir Oz to the flags at the UN Plaza.
History is watching. And if it records that the first sovereign act of the Palestinian state was the murder of 1,200 Jews, then this isn’t diplomacy. It’s complicity.
And yet, I still believe in peace. And I still believe, naively, stubbornly, optimistically, that a two-state solution is possible. But not this one. Not one born in blood and barbed wire, not one midwifed by Hamas and cheered on by the morally disoriented in Paris. A Palestinian state should arise from negotiations, not nightmares; from co-existence, not carnage. Until then, France and the UN aren’t building a future, they’re desecrating a grave.
So it will fall to the United States, who, despite being led by an orange man child, is still the adult in the room with the veto power to stop this grotesque performance. If it chooses, it can kill this diplomatic farce before it becomes precedent. If it chooses, it can stand up for the idea that Jewish lives are not a bargaining chip. The orange man child, who moved the embassy to Jerusalem, now has a choice: veto a Palestinian state born of massacre… or go down in history as the schmuck who gave Hamas a seat next to Luxembourg.
I bristle whenever I write this, but I will be rooting for the orange man child to make the right decision.
Brad out.
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