After a meeting with the Israeli Prime Minister in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron goes to Ramallah to meet with the president of the Palestinian Authority. A trip from which the Palestinians expect nothing special.
In Ramallah, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority, located in the West Bank, no one really cares about the arrival of Emmanuel Macron. The French head of state met there on Tuesday, October 24, late in the afternoon, with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. A little earlier today, Emmanuel Macron was in Tel Aviv to express the “full solidarity” of France with Israel after the attack by the Palestinian movement Hamas which left more than 1,400 dead on Saturday October 7.
The inhabitants of Ramallah are therefore not waiting for Emmanuel Macron to welcome him. “What’s the point, what’s the point?”asks Sam, a 65-year-old Palestinian. “He needs to change because his political stance against the Palestinians is really bad. ‘Israel has the right to defend itself’? We have the right to defend ourselves. We are under occupation. We just want to live the same way as everyone else people”he continues.
In the policies of Emmanuel Macron and his government, this Palestinian sees above all racism towards Muslims. He cites the controversies over the wearing of the hijab. The older generations especially see the contrast with Jacques Chirac, the one who said no to the war in Iraq or who welcomed the former leader Yasser Arafat. The younger generations, like Nasser, 30, are much more categorical: “Even if France did something in the past, we are talking about now. Today, look at what the Israeli occupation is doing in the occupied West Bank or Gaza, and Macron supports them”.
“Emmanuel Macron supports them unconditionally? Without thinking of the civilians who are killed? It’s shameful, it’s insulting”
Nasser, a 30-year-old Palestinianat franceinfo
“Frankly, I would like to salute the French people who are going out into the streets, those who demonstrated every day even though it was forbidden. All those who raised their voices to support us. I am thinking particularly of Karim Benzema”assures this Palestinian.
The French president is the only head of state to have traveled to the occupied West Bank, but the feeling of abandonment by the international community is not new. It is shared among the almost majority of Palestinians. “For more than 70 years, the world has not supported us. So I don’t think the Palestinians expect anything from the outside. The solution is to liberate Palestine and return it to the Palestinians.”, explains one of them, who also believes that the Oslo Accords have been dead for a long time. He points out that those who still believe in the two-state solution today have never really listened to them.