Emmanuel Macron’s support for Palestine is finally earning him some popularity at home – for all the right reasons.

The streets of France have been full of demonstrators expressing their visceral opposition to President Emmanuel Macron in recent weeks.

His current government is an outgoing one following the loss of a sixth prime minister in just eight years, he does not control the Paris parliament, and Macron’s austerity budget plans are being left to stagnate while making him widely detested.

All of this is routine for a late term head of state in France, a country built on violent revolution. Heads of state are there to be pilloried, with the majority of citizens calling for them to resign at every opportunity. 

Join any of the widespread protests currently being organised by the country’s massive pro-Palestine movement, however, and you will hear plenty of praise for Mr Macron.

Even the most radical agitators are impressed by the lead he has shown in exposing the lethal repression of the Palestinian people. Macron’s successful demands have included France finally recognising the State of Palestine, along with scores of other forward-thinking countries.

Fabien Roussel, the national secretary of the French Communist Party, summed up a newfound admiration for Mr Macron with the words: “A victory, belated, but a victory nonetheless.” “France must now act for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and put an end to the massacres, the persecutions, and the Occupation.”

It is unusual for a politician committed to the overthrow of capitalism to be supporting a former merchant banker and affirmed globalist financier such as Macron, but the worst atrocities of the century override all other considerations. 

Referring to the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu – an indicted war criminal – Roussel added on X: “We must stop Netanyahu!” In this sense, there is no doubt that a western leader finally standing up to Netanyahu and his cohorts must be applauded vigorously. 

Macron has not only expressed outrage at the mass murder, starvation and wounding of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, but finally opposed a traditional ally. This defies decades of slavish support for an Israel that has been routinely wiping out Palestinian communities since it came into existence in 1948.

It was not that long ago that Macron himself was playing along with propaganda that seeks to portray Palestinians as being something less than human. While Donald Trump continues with such obscene narratives – the American president regularly lies about mass rapes and the beheading of babies by insurgents, for example – Macron now projects the Palestinian cause as legal, moral and urgent. 

“The time has come to stop the war, the bombings of Gaza, the massacres and the displacement,” Macron said in a powerful speech from the podium at the United Nations in New York City on Monday night.

This naturally infuriated the Israelis. As far-Right ministers in Tel Aviv contemplated the illegal annexation of the West Bank, Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, warned: “We will take action” (As if they haven’t taken unspeakable “action” already!)

Danon – another arch propagandist who regularly distorts reality to try and defend the indefensible – said: “It’s easier to come here and give speeches, take pictures, feel like they are doing something, but they are not promoting peace.”

Displaying venal hatred towards anyone who calls out crimes against humanity, Danon added: “They are supporting terrorism.”

This sums up Israeli policies in a nutshell. They drop bombs and missiles on defenceless civilians, while destroying infrastructure and stealing land, and then portray such evil as being good for the world, because it somehow assists their never-ending war against neighbours that are always described as “terrorists”.

READ: AlArab in UK thanks UK, Spain, Canada, Portugal, Australia, Belgium, France and Malta for recognising Palestine

Even worse euphemisms have been used by plenty of Israelis, with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant saying at the start of the latest rounds of atrocities: “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”

Now, global revulsion is focused on Israeli barbarism, as it is broadcast to the world by the few Palestinian journalists who have not been assassinated by their oppressors. 

Boastful Israeli soldiers are also creating plenty of evidence against themselves, as they show off about flattening places like Gaza City, while leaving thousands of innocents under the rubble. 

These kind of outrages have been going on long before the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led ground raid, when 1200 Israelis including  civilians, as well as soldiers, police, and members of the Shin Bet security agency lost their lives – some at the hands of the Israeli army some at the hands of the Israeli army. In turn, 1,609 of the Palestinian attackers were killed on the day.

Since then, well over 60,000 Palestinians have been exterminated, many of them children, with tens of thousands more maimed (Gaza has the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world), yet the Israelis want to carry on with the collective punishment indefinitely.

Trump – somebody who wants to turn Gaza into a glitzy beach resort – is meanwhile dedicated to pouring arms and money into the continued eradication of Palestinians. 

Macron is sick and tired of this perpetual horror show, and this is the principal reason for his change of view. 

When he came to power in 2017, Macron was enthusing about Israeli business start-ups, while suggesting that France’s economy would benefit from the same kind of entrepreneurial initiatives. 

He barely mentioned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and – after October 7th 2023 – he at first displayed full solidarity with the Israelis only.

The ferocity of Israeli revenge for the Hamas attacks soon changed Macron’s mind, however, just as it changed the mind of millions of others around the world. It was obvious that the Netanyahu administration was using the conflict to try and push for a Greater Israel.

Illegal land grabs by settlers across the Occupied West Bank intensified, while Netanyahu made it clear that anyone showing resistance in Gaza would be obliterated.

Resistance did not mean fighting back with arms either, but simply Palestinians remaining around their homes on Palestinian territory. Thus, talking to the BBC as early as November 2023, Macron pleaded with Israel to stop killing the most vulnerable members of society, including newborn infants.

Macron said: “De facto, today, civilians are being bombed, de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop.”

Macron also began to tell western countries, and especially the USA, to stop arming Israel. There were also visits to places close to the conflict zone, where Macron met maimed Palestinians. Seeing their suffering at first hand was certainly a revelatory moment for Macron, he has confirmed. 

He began to see the Palestinian cause as one that encapsulated the extremes of oppression carried out by the West, especially in Arab Muslim countries. Turning a blind eye to the massacre of Gazans meant turning a blind eye to such atrocities across the globe, he reasoned. 

Yes, there has been double speak by Macron – he once described Jersusalem as the eternal capital of Israel, while omitting Palestine’s claim to it – but there is no doubt that his thinking has now been firmly turned by the march of history.

He believes that a ceasefire in Gaza can be followed by a concerted period of stability, with peace ensured in the short term by international security forces.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia would help finance the reconstruction of Gaza, as well as contributing Arab personnel to the rebuilding. 

Yes, such positive measures seem a long way off while the genocide continues day-in, day-out, but recognition of the State of Palestine means that it is no longer viewed as the eternal victim – a country that has to be kept down by extreme violence at all times. 

Instead, Emmanuel Macron has rallied western allies including Australia, Britain, and Canada into recognising Palestine, and thus acknowledging that Israeli hegemony can be challenged and stopped.

The move will certainly make Macron hugely unpopular with new enemies – notably the Israelis and the Americans – but he will rightly believe that this is a price worth paying.

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