A
Pyrrhic Palestinian Victory in France
by Michel Gurfinkiel
PJ Media
December 5, 2014
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Protestors
condemn the vote in front of the French National Assembly in Paris on
December 2.
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Just like the House of Commons a bit earlier, on December 2 the French
National Assembly voted for a seemingly significant but in reality inconsequential
resolution calling for the recognition of the state of Palestine.
Indeed, the resolution won by a large margin: 339 to 151. But there is
very little substance about it, either in constitutional or political
terms. It may even accelerate a pro-Israel reaction both in France and in
the European Union at large.
The constitutional angle is clear enough. As Laurent Fabius, the
French foreign minister, observed a few days before the vote, "the
policy of France," including its foreign policy and the recognition
of foreign States, "is determined and conducted by the
Government" under the Fifth Republic Constitution of 1958, article
20. Moreover, according to a constitutional custom tracing back to
General Charles de Gaulle, the Fifth Republic's first president from 1959
to 1969, it is the president's exclusive prerogative to make decisions in
matters of defense and international relations.
The French executive — President François Hollande as well as Prime
Minister Manuel Valls and diplomacy chief Fabius — has definitely made up
its mind about the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. It sticks to the
Israeli-Palestinian peace process as defined by the 1993 Oslo accords and
subsequent agreements. Accordingly, it opposes the recognition of the
state of Palestine under the present circumstances, since such a move
would wreck the Oslo accords for good. However, in order to revive and
accelerate the peace process, France is prepared to hold a peace
conference in Paris with Israel, the Palestinians, and the powers or international
organizations that may have been involved at one point or another (the
United States, Russia, the EU, the UN, etc).
A French National Assembly
resolution calling for the recognition of the state of Palestine
carries no more weight than a United Nations General Assembly
resolution. It has no binding power whatsoever.
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Given that context, a French National Assembly resolution calling for
the recognition of the state of Palestine carries no more weight than a
United Nations General Assembly resolution. It has no binding power
whatsoever.
The political angle is a bit more complex. Still, it leads to the
similar conclusion that the resolution is a non-starter. It has been
essentially supported by the current Left majority in the National
Assembly (a coalition of socialists, quasi-socialists, neocommunists, and
Greens, who hold 343 seats out of 577). The conservative opposition (225
seats) opposed it or abstained. However, the legitimacy of the
Left-dominated National Assembly is eroding at a smart pace. According to
a CSA/Le Figaro poll that was coincidentally released on the very day the
assembly voted on Palestine, new elections, if held now, would be an
unprecedented triumph for Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative party and its
centrist allies.
They would garner about 500 seats out of 577, and in an unprecedented
disaster for the left, they would be reduced to about 60 seats. The remaining
seats would go to Marine Le Pen's National Front. Even if the next
elections are scheduled for 2017, and even though a lot can happen in the
time before that, the stage is set for a momentous political reversal.
The unravelling of the French Left may be the key to an intriguing
paradox: why in the world did the parliamentary Left insist upon a
foreign policy resolution that the governing Left had no intention of
implementing?
Dogmatism may be at stake: supporting the state of Palestine, whatever
that means and even if it might turn into an Islamic State of Palestine,
is part of the Left and Far Left mantras worldwide. A further explanation
may be that the Left's last hope to survive in the coming election is to
garner as much support as possible from the immigrant Muslim community,
which will provide an average of 5 to 10% of the vote.
Finally, Hollande and Valls are so unpopular among their own
constituency that the entire socialist and left-wing political class
needs to distance themselves from them on almost all issues, either
domestic or international.
Sarkozy, who was elected on November 30 as the new chairman of the
conservative UMP party — an important step for being reelected as
president in 2017 — campaigned against the Palestine resolution. This
point will not be lost on pro-Israel voters in the future, nor on a
growing number of voters, both on the Right and the Left, that are
concerned with the rise of jihadism in Europe as well as in the Middle
East. Sarkozy's main rivals among the conservatives, Alain Juppé and
François Fillon, both of them former prime ministers, did not take part
in the ballot. They had previously supported the socialist resolution;
this too will not be easily forgotten.
The two National Front members of the National Assembly abstained, but
one of them, barrister Gilbert Collard, delivered a passionately
pro-Israel speech on November 28. While the National Front's old guard is
seen as "anti-Zionist," its new supporters are generally
pro-Israel. In a rare instance of circumstantial convergence, Meyer
Habib, the centrist representative for the 8th French expatriates
district (Italy, Israel, and other Eastern Mediterranean countries),
heartily applauded Collard's speech.
Some Eastern European countries recognized a so-called state of
Palestine even before the Oslo accords and the creation of the
Palestinian Authority, when they were still under Soviet control, and
neglected thereafter to mend that move. Sweden — under a left-wing
coalition dependent on the immigrant vote — was the first Western
European country last September to grant formal recognition to post-Oslo
Palestine. Some national assemblies, in the United Kingdom, in Spain, and
now in France, followed and quite frivolously indulged in non-binding
resolutions.
However, the French vote was passed under such Pyrrhic conditions that
the whole exercise may come to an end.
Michel Gurfinkiel is the Founder and President of the Jean-Jacques
Rousseau Institute, a conservative think-thank in France, and a
Shillman/Ginsburg Fellow at Middle East Forum.
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