On July 24, 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron said France would recognize a Palestinian state. For proponents of Palestinian statehood, winning the endorsement of its first G7 member is a watershed. Macron may be endorsing a Palestinian state for the wrong reasons: He fears the restiveness of his own Arab population and wishes to appease a domestic Islamic bloc that cares little for French laicism. If it requires throwing Jews under the bus, Macron is happy to be the second coming of Marshal Philippe Petain, the head of Vichy France. It is easy to endorse Palestine. It may be much harder to stomach what comes next.

Nor is Macron alone. In foreign ministries from Europe to Australia and on American college campuses, pro-Palestinian advocacy focuses solely on independence. It is virtue signaling at its basest. There is little, if any, discussion about what might happen to an independent Palestine. Palestinians have long been the world’s largest if undeserving welfare case, for decades sucking up more money per capita than any other humanitarian cause. Such short-sighted generosity has come at the expense of Palestinian agency. Palestinian politicians knew naïve donors would always bail them out and so never developed functioning governance or services, preferring instead to embezzle money or funnel it into tunnels and terrorists.