How Macron and Saudi Arabia turned the tide on Western support for a Palestinian state

The push gathered force as Macron grew frustrated with Israel and watched as the Middle East’s traditional diplomatic power-broker, the U.S., was stymied in its efforts to end the war in Gaza. Over much of the past year, the French joined the Saudis in pressing Western countries to buck their biggest ally in Washington and, in Macron’s eyes, save the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

By Sunday morning, the U.K., Australia, Canada and Portugal endorsed Palestinian statehood. On Monday, France, Belgium and a host of other countries are expected to gather on the floor of the U.N. General Assembly and do the same.

The efforts demonstrate the ability of regional powers like France and Saudi Arabia to step into the void left by the U.S. in the Middle East, breaking with longstanding American policy that dangled the possibility of Palestinian statehood as a way to drive Israeli and Palestinian leaders to the negotiating table. And it also showed Macron’s penchant for punching far above his weight in a region where France’s influence had been waning.

“He created a dynamic and momentum that didn’t exist before," said Rym Momtaz, an analyst with the Carnegie Europe think tank.

Macron’s stance began to take shape in the months after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. As the Palestinian death toll rose into the tens-of-thousands, French officials grew frustrated with Washington for not putting enough pressure on Israel to end the Gaza war.

The French leader visited King Abudullah II of Jordan in February 2024 and declared for the first time that recognizing a Palestinian state was “not a taboo for France."

Toward the end of 2024, the Saudis began encouraging the French to press other countries to recognize a Palestinian state, saying it would pave the way toward Riyadh normalizing relations with Israel. Macron traveled to Saudi Arabia in December to meet with Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and de facto ruler.

Months later he visited Egypt, meeting with wounded Palestinians undergoing treatment at a hospital near the border with Gaza. That brought Macron face-to-face with Gaza’s escalating humanitarian crisis—an experience that shook the French leader, according to people close to him.

Jordan's King Abdullah II, Macron and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi met in Cairo to discuss Gaza in April.

More than 65,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war in Gaza, according to local health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants. Swaths of the Gaza enclave have been reduced to ruins.

In July, Macron traveled to London for a state visit, pressing his case with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

“With Gaza in ruins and the West Bank being on a daily basis attacked," Macron said in a speech before the British parliament, “a Palestinian state has never been put at risk as it is."

Macron and the Saudis meanwhile laid the groundwork for a conference in New York, where Arab nations jointly condemned the Hamas attack on Israel; called for the group’s disarmament; and opposed any role for the militant group in a new Palestinian state. The conference also called for the deployment of a “temporary international stabilization mission."

In late July, days before the start of the conference, Macron unexpectedly sent a letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, announcing that France planned to recognize Palestinian statehood at the U.N. General Assembly. That announcement was the first from a member of the Group of Seven nations, and it opened the floodgates for other Western powers to follow suit.

“The prospect of a negotiated solution to the conflict in the Middle East seems increasingly distant. I cannot resign myself to that," he wrote.

Legitimizing a Palestinian state before the eyes of the world, Macron and Western allies now contend, is the only way to preserve the possibility, however remote, of a two-state solution as Israel intensifies its war effort in Gaza and continues building settlements in the occupied West Bank.

The diplomatic maneuver illustrates Macron’s enduring belief in the power of international cooperation to shape events, as opposed to the exercise of raw military power.

“For me the recognition is a process. What we want to do is trigger a series of new behaviors and new commitments," Macron told Israeli TV last week.

For now, Macron’s diplomacy is reshaping France’s longstanding role as a mediator between Israel and much of the Arab world.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Macron of fueling antisemitism and rewarding Hamas for the terrorist attack that killed around 1,200 people. Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate against Macron’s campaign without saying how.

U.S. and Israeli officials say Macron’s push will do nothing to change reality on the ground while reducing the incentives of the Palestinian Authority, which is hamstrung with misgovernance and corruption, to reform. Israel’s right-wing government has equated the Palestinian Authority with Hamas, even though Israel relies on security coordination with the authority to counter militants in the West Bank.

A senior U.S. administration official warned that recognizing a Palestinian state could be “the very end of the chance" at a two-state solution.

Israel would retaliate, the official said, and likely receive American support for its response. Members of Netanyahu’s government have called for the annexation of the West Bank, a move that could risk upending the normalization deals with Arab countries known as the Abraham Accords, which were a key achievement of Trump’s first term.

Last month, the Israeli government approved a controversial new settlement that could effectively divide the West Bank in half.

Write to Stacy Meichtry at Stacy.Meichtry@wsj.com, Anat Peled at anat.peled@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com