Despite Suffering Ridicule, Macron's Two-state Initiative Heavily Affected Trump's Gaza Plan

 In the coming days, when every hour will likely see earth-shattering news, instinct tells us to cross our fingers and avoid prophecy. But already, when it's still premature to say that the war in Gaza is about to end and the hostages will return home, credit must be given to one leader who was greatly ridiculed in Israel, including by this writer, French President Emmanuel Macron.

The French-Saudi initiative, launched in late September, initially gave the impression of being clumsy, and despite all its bells and whistles, of carrying zero practical significance. The preparation meetings and cancelled conferences, salvaged by lower-level officials, along with the dispensing of highfalutin words that seemed utterly detached from the bloody reality on the ground, and of course, the multitude of insults that Macron suffered from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his family, none of that helped Macron's image or his proposal in Israel.

But it seems that, in the end, France's intensive diplomacy, both behind the scenes and publicly, has resulted in greater-than-expected results. The 20-point American plan rests on the New York declaration – born of the French-Saudi initiative – in some key points: the placing of an international force in Gaza, which seemed hallucinatory just a few weeks ago. The deradicalization plans of both parties – the Israeli and Palestinian – are also taken from the French-Saudi document.

The concrete comprehensive guarantee for reforming the Palestinian Authority made by President Mahmoud Abbas was in response to and consideration of the Western initiative, led by Macron, to recognize a Palestinian state. The White House plan listed these commitments as goals that will make it possible to transfer power in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.

Dr. Muriel Asseburg, Senior Fellow at the Africa and Middle East division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), says that the practical achievements of the French-Saudi initiative are even greater: "I think three points can be identified where the initiative brought the Trump administration to a place where it wasn't before," she told Haaretz.

"First, the fact that the 'Gaza Riviera' fantasy, that would have displaced its residents, officially came off the table. Second, this is the initiative that took the Arab states into account, embraced their engagement and acknowledged their responsibility and commitment, also forcing them to work together rather than pulling in different directions. And the third point is that the French-Saudi initiative led Arab states and also Abu Mazen [Abbas] to come out publicly to unequivocally condemn the atrocities committed on October 7, 2023, and say there is no future with Hamas."

The Trump administration's strong objections to recognizing Palestine, which began with great fanfare, faded into a whimper, clearly under massive joint Arab-Muslim pressure. Ultimately, the two-state vision was also woven into the 20-point plan – perhaps Macron's greatest and most surprising achievement, which shows the power of formulating any vision, even the most general and amorphous, for the day after.

Moreover, even Israel's threats about "reciprocal measures" against countries that recognized Palestine appear to be irrelevant. Annexation has been dropped from the agenda for the foreseeable future in the face of the very clear messages by the United Arab Emirates and Trump's jarring statements. It is also hard to imagine that Israel will now impose diplomatic sanctions against France or the U.K., especially if Jerusalem is in the midst of negotiating with Hamas.

Nonetheless, despite the winds of change sweeping over Netanyahu's aides, who said even before Monday's meeting with Trump that the campaign in Gaza was effectively over, all options remain open – from ending the war to torpedoing the agreement, from launching a broad regional peace process to winding up in an aggressive and paranoia-driven stalemate.

For their part, the Western countries, including France, the U.K. and especially Germany, will definitely seize the opportunity to begin restoring relations with Israel, which have deteriorated to an unprecedented low in recent months, but this will not come unconditionally.

Asseberg was one of the initiators of a policy document published last week calling on the German government to adopt a new Middle East policy which would end favoring support for Israel. It is signed by scores of German academics and Israeli researchers, along with former German, European and Israeli diplomats and political activists.

The document, published last week, proposes that the German government adopt a new policy for the Middle East, including an end to the traditional support for Israel, which was based on historic reasons, but which often superseded Germany's constitutional and moral commitments. Its operative proposals included imposing a more comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, suspending German support for the EU–Israel Association Agreement and preventing settlers from being able to use the visa exemption granted to Israelis entering Europe.

Germany has signalled in the past few weeks that it is on the verge of changing its policy of blocking anti-Israeli initiatives in the EU. Now that Israel is indicating that it is prepared to move forward with the Trump plan, the likelihood of Germany following through with that has been greatly reduced.

In fact, not just Germany, but Europe as a whole, has always signalled to Israel that it was prepared to reconcile the moment Israel gives it sufficiently good grounds to do so. Nonetheless, it seems that European public opinion towards Israel, in Germany in particular, has taken a sharp turn for the worse, and it may not be so simple to reverse that.

One small example is that of a poll by U.K. pollster YouGov of more than 1,000 German voters, which found that 60 percent of the conservative CDU/CSU voters (Chancellor Friedrich Merz's party) think that Israeli actions in Gaza can be described as genocide. That percentage is even higher among voters of the Greens, Die Linke and the Social Democrats on the left. Among voters of the far-right AfD, with which even the current Israeli government does not have ties, 56 percent believe that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

Based on public opinion, it appears that the willingness of most Western countries, which are run by moderates, to restore relations with Israel to their former state will be hesitant and conditional. "The EU and European governments, especially Germany, will be eager to repair relations with Israel once the bloodshed ends," says Asseberg. "Whether that materializes will depend mainly on the government of Israel being perceived as a partner in achieving progress towards comprehensive conflict resolution."

Europe has long despaired of Netanyahu and his government, but it has been careful to convey that this despair does not apply to the rest of Israel's people. The end of the war will be enough to stem the tide, but Europe will prefer to rebuild relations with another partner.