This photograph taken on a screen of the main control room of the French channel TF1, shows France’s President Emmanuel Macron (L) talking, as a photo of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is displayed in background, during a live special program at televisions studios in Saint-Denis, north of Paris, on May 13, 2025.
Ludovic Marin / AFP
Recognising a Palestinian state rewards terrorism and puts Jewish citizens at risk.
Attacking Israel’s war against Hamas terrorists doesn’t just leave the Middle East’s only democracy increasingly isolated on the world stage. It also increases the likelihood of attacks against Jewish citizens at home.
That is the message of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who this week told French President Emmanuel Macron that his plan to recognise a Palestinian state not only rewards terrorism but also “pours fuel” on antisemitic sentiments. He said that such a move “is not diplomacy, it is appeasement.”
It rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas’s refusal to free the hostages, emboldens those who menace French Jews and encourages the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets.
Macron’s office has since accepted that there has been a “rise in antisemitic violence in France” but said this was not a result of the planned recognition. It did not respond to Netanyahu’s other claim that this is also a result of the president’s “public statements attacking Israel” since October 7th, 2023.
Likewise, the Israeli leader previously said those European officials demanding that Israel end its war against Hamas were partly to blame for the May killing of a young couple outside Washington D.C.’s Jewish museum by a pro-Palestine activist.
In the UK, too, which has long been critical of Israel’s war against Hamas and recently threatened to recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel stops fighting, a survey earlier this year revealed that half of Jews have considered leaving the country, with many of them citing antisemitism.
Anti-Jewish hate crimes have also seen a large spike since October 7th in Canada, where officials said at the end of July that they intend to recognise a Palestinian state. About two weeks later, a Jewish group was attacked at Montréal Pride.
Perhaps even more notably, Israeli officials blasted Ireland and Spain as being the European nations most hostile to their Jewish communities, largely because of a rise in antisemitism in the year after both recognised a Palestinian state.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
