Elie Barnavi and Vincent Lemire: "Mr. President, if immediate sanctions are not imposed on Israel, you will end up recognizing a cemetery"

Mr. President,

It is as historians that we address you. As historians aware of the tragedy of history and the extreme peril that threatens us today. On Thursday, July 24, you made a courageous and useful decision by announcing France's recognition of the State of Palestine at the next United Nations General Assembly on September 21. Thanks to your initiative, the United Kingdom, Canada, and soon other Western powers will join this collective effort. Thanks to this diplomatic momentum, the legal capacities of Palestinian citizens will be strengthened before international bodies, something they need more than ever. Since your announcement, international mobilization has grown to demand a ceasefire to end the unbearable ordeal of the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza and the Israeli hostages held by Hamas. This too must be credited to you.

Your initiative is part of a long history of promises, recognitions and denials, which has always been carried out through exchanges of letters. On November 2, 1917, the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Balfour, gave his written support to the project of "establishing in Palestine a national home for the Jewish people," promising that "nothing will be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities existing in Palestine." At the end of the first Arab-Israeli war, on January 24, 1949, the French Foreign Minister, Robert Schuman, recognized in writing "the provisional government of Israel," adding that "this decision does not prejudge the definitive delimitation by the United Nations of the territory over which it will exercise its authority."

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