By recognizing a Palestinian state when multiple Palestinian groups contest Palestinian leadership and Abbas himself is facing his own mortality makes intra-Palestinian civil war likely.By Michael Rubin, Middle East ForumOn July 24, 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron, facing growing political opposition at home and with his wife signaling looming divorce, decided to change the conversation to the Middle East.Taking to social media, he tweeted the surprise announcement that he would recognize Palestinian independence when he visits New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly.“Consistent with its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognize the State of Palestine,” he wrote.Macron may believe unilateral recognition of Palestinian independence will break the peace process logjam and advance peace in the Middle East, but he is wrong.By recognizing a Palestinian state, he unleashes cascading conflict.First, he recognizes a state with disputed borders. To call Judea and Samaria “occupied” raises the question, occupied from whom?Prior to the exertion of Israel’s control in 1967, Jordan both administered Judea and Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem, and ethnically cleansed Jews from its territories.Prior to Jordan’s creation by the British, the Ottomans administered the region, but did not utilize the same administrative districts.Palestinian Arab identity did not coalesce until the mid-twentieth century. Prior to the backdrop of Israel’s creation, those who identify as Palestinian Arab today largely saw themselves as Syrian.Most were relatively recent migrants attracted to land opened by Jewish immigrants’ draining of malarial swamps and irrigation schemes.France’s recognition will not resolve border disputes, but could add urgency to them. To recognize the 1949 Armistice Lines as the border between Israel and a Palestinian state is to declare that Israel must evacuate the Old City of Jerusalem.In effect, Macron would be resurrecting and endorsing Jordan’s ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem’s Jews in the 1940s. If, however, Macron makes exceptions for Jewish neighborhoods and towns, then he is acknowledging the prematurity of his recognition.Second, France condemns any resulting Palestinian state to failure. Who runs a Palestinian state? Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is nearly 90 years old.He is currently serving the twenty-first year of his four-year term, having refused to step down, submit himself to the electorate, or appoint a successor.Indeed, a major reason why Hamas decided to invade Israel on October 7, 2023, was to stake its claim to post-Abbas Palestinian leadership.By recognizing a Palestinian state when multiple Palestinian groups contest Palestinian leadership and Abbas himself is facing his own mortality makes intra-Palestinian civil war likely.Imagine Sudan, South Sudan, or the Democratic Republic of Congo on steroids as multiple states choose and arm their factions and use Palestinian blood to play out their own rivalries.Beginning with the First Intifada in 1987, many academics and activists rationalized Palestinian violence: Palestinians threw stones or used suicide bombers because they did not have missiles or jets.Such logic may have explained the asymmetry but sidestepped an important question: If the Palestinian state did have similar weaponry to Israel, would it then use it? The answer is yes.One of the main brakes on recognition of Palestinian statehood has been the fear that other countries might then sell or provide weaponry to it.In April and October 2024, and then again in June 2025, Iran launched missiles and drones at Israel. Israel, however, had some forewarning due to the distance between the two countries; at their closest, Israel and Iran are 763 miles apart, though Iran stationed its drones and missile launchers even further away.If independent, nothing but military force can prevent Iran from stationing missiles in Judea and Samaria and Gaza. Nor would Iran be alone in seeking to use a Palestinian state as a beachhead.An even greater problem might be Turkey. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has openly sought to reconstitute the Ottoman Empire in spirit if not formally.Turkey dominates Syria and increasingly northern Lebanon as well. For Erdoğan, a Palestinian state dominated by Hamas would be the prize.He openly supports Hamas and has allowed the group safe haven inside Turkey to plot its attacks on Israel.Turkey already sells its drones and weaponry to clients across the region, from Somalia to Pakistan; Erdoğan will see an independent Palestinian state, buffeted by French and international assistance, as a natural market for Turkish weaponry to use against not only Israel but also Jordan, whose Hashemite monarchy stands directly in the way of Erdoğan’s neo-Ottoman ambitions.Whichever country’s weapons trade with the Palestinian state might be the trigger, the result would be the same:What once the international community could contain with weapons embargoes or limit to counterterror campaigns, now will be an intra-state war involving at least two, and perhaps even more, countries across the region.The question now is not whether there will be a war but when.The post Has Macron just laid the ground for a major Middle Eastern war? appeared first on World Israel News.