How Does Macron Answer US Criticism On Palestine?

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00:00Very well. Your announcement, recognized in the state of Palestine, has been criticized by the United States.

00:06President Trump even echoed the words of the Israeli Prime Minister, saying that it would be a reward for Hamas.

00:11How do you respond to that?

00:14I had the opportunity to raise this yesterday with President Trump and to explain above all where our points of convergence and agreement lie,

00:22rather than insisting on the disagreements.

00:24But I think the exact opposite. First of all, Hamas has never wanted two states. Never.

00:31Hamas wants the destruction of Israel. That is what makes it a terrorist group.

00:36If we are weak or cynical enough to think that the two-state solution has become impossible simply because Hamas claims it as its project,

00:43then we are making a terrible mistake. So what we are doing is not what Hamas is asking for.

00:48The second point is that total war to eradicate Hamas does not work.

00:53It works to take down Hamas' leadership, its decision-makers, and the Israeli army has succeeded at doing that.

01:00But today, there are as many Hamas fighters as there were in October 7.

01:04So we must be clear-eyed. After civilians killed, after soldiers wounded and killed, it still doesn't work.

01:11Therefore, you can clearly see that the only way to eradicate Hamas is through a political path that consists of isolating and weakening it.

01:20That is exactly what the Franco-Saudi initiative allows us to do.

01:23First, because we have remobilized the Palestinian Authority, which for the first time in its letter of last June in response to ours,

01:31condemned the October 7 attacks, calling them terrorist attacks.

01:35And this is tied to the will to dismantle Hamas.

01:38Second, because for the first time in the New York Declaration, among the 142 states supporting it,

01:44you have both the Arab League and the OIC.

01:47So all these states have agreed on the dismantling and demilitarization, the disarmament of Hamas.

01:53This means that all the states in the region have agreed to work together on this project.

01:57It is best, the only strategy to isolate Hamas and put an end to its harmful actions,

02:02which are the root cause of everything we are experiencing.