The media, which is mostly pro-Israel here as elsewhere, continue to proclaim that it is the Palestinian Arabs who do not want a Jewish state, when for 80 years it has been Israel that has blocked any agreement, prohibited the creation of a Palestinian state as provided for in the 1947 agreements, and terrorised and massacred Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. The solution, as always, lies in respect for international law and conventions. For those who doubt all this, I recommend the speeches and writings of Monique Chemillier-Gendreau, a leading expert in international law and state theory. The French lawyer regularly pleads before international courts, such as the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague (Netherlands), where several cases concerning Israel and Palestine are pending.
In May 2025, she spoke on behalf of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the voice of the Muslim world, in defence of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which Israel has banned from operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
In February 2024, she argued, again on behalf of the OIC, in the case concerning the occupation of Palestine, which led to a historic decision by the ICJ on 19 July 2024: Israel must cease all settlement activities in Palestinian territory and return to its inhabitants their land and property confiscated since 1967.
In this interview with Médiaprt, everything is said and reiterated, and as always, the facts are stubborn and the data indisputable, especially when placed in their historical context. Monique Chemillier-Gendreau discusses her recently published book, Rendre impossible un État palestinien. L’objectif d’Israël depuis sa création (Making a Palestinian State Impossible: Israel’s Goal Since Its Creation) (Éditions Textuel, 2025), in which she relentlessly dismantles seventy-five years of Israeli pretence.
She sees the impunity enjoyed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as ‘the deep complicity of the colonial West’ and calls for ‘not giving in to discouragement’ and continuing to defend the law. ‘Once asserted, it becomes part of the balance of power and eventually tips the scales,’ she asserts. This is what happened in certain wars and national liberation struggles,‘ in Vietnam, Algeria and Portugal. As for Israel’s security, it depends on respect for the rights of the Palestinians, argues Monique Chemillier-Gendreau: ’It is by making them understand this that we will protect the Israelis from themselves. “
Mediapart: How do you explain that after more than 20 months of genocidal war in Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu still enjoys such impunity that he can attack Iran and further destabilise the region?
Monique Chemillier-Gendreau: We can clearly see from French President Emmanuel Macron’s statements on Israel’s war of aggression against Iran, which were devoid of any condemnation, that Western countries are not prepared to stop Israel. What is at stake here is the deep complicity of the colonial West.
These countries remain steeped in colonial ideology and nostalgia for the colonial era. It is up to public opinion to try to reverse this trend. Unfortunately, the ideology that drives the leaders is shared by part of the public.
This raises the question of how to deal with the complicity of Israel’s allies and their failure to fulfil their international obligations. What is the point of law if it is not respected?
The law has delayed effects. It is important that it be stated because once it is affirmed, it enters into the balance of power and eventually tips it. This is what happened in certain wars and national liberation struggles.
The balance of power was not in favour of the Vietnamese in the war waged against them by the United States. Nor were they in favour of the Algerians when France decided to oppose Algerian independence fighters by force. They were not in favour of the colonised peoples of Portugal when that country persisted, through deadly colonial wars, in preventing what it considered to be its ‘overseas provinces’ from gaining independence.
And yet, all these oppressed peoples won. Neither military superiority, nor financial resources, nor the allies of the dominant states mentioned here enabled them to triumph. This was because the law had become involved. And even among the strongest, the perception of the law, that is, the gradually growing conviction that their actions were illegal, led to their defeat.
The determination of the peoples in struggle was essential. But the fact that public opinion swung against the oppressors was not insignificant. The Vietnam War was won by the Vietnamese, but with the support of intellectuals around the world in the Russell Tribunal and American students who fought the battle – at what cost! – on American campuses. They did so with the conviction that this war was illegal.
The same was true of the colonial wars of France and Portugal. The rebels under colonial oppression would not have won in the same way if the rights of peoples to self-determination and to fight against colonialism by all means had not been proclaimed at the United Nations.
That is why we must not give in to discouragement and must continue to proclaim what is right and what is wrong. The delayed effect will come.
You concluded your closing arguments in February 2024 in the case of the occupation of Palestine before the International Court of Justice by calling for ‘saving the Israelis from themselves’. What do you mean by that?
We can clearly see from this war declared against Iran that the Israeli government is engaged in a deadly spiral, intoxicated as it is by its real military and technological superiority. The Israeli population is caught up in this delirium.
This population was rightly traumatised by the attacks of 7 October. But it did not have the means to put these attacks into context because Israel, a non-democratic state, is based not only on racial segregation and apartheid, but also on deliberately biased and historically false information.
And there was also an ideological shock for this population, which is as follows: the entire Zionist ideology was based on two false ideas: that there was land available in the Middle East to welcome Jews who, after two thousand years of diaspora, had decided to regroup in one territory; and that the risks of persecution to which they had been exposed for centuries would cease with their regrouping on land belonging to them and that they would thus be protected.
Israel has worked hard […] to ensure that at no point would the basic elements of a [Palestinian] state be made possible.
Both of these ideas have been shattered. Despite the acceleration of Israel’s policy of driving out, expelling and herding the Palestinians, they are still there and other countries refuse to accept them. So no, this land is not free. It is occupied by a people who have rights there and will not give them up.
As for the idea that a piece of land of their own would protect Jews from the persecution and massacres they have so often suffered throughout their history, this is also completely false, as the massacres of 7 October have shown.
Despite its military, technological and intelligence superiority, Israel was caught off guard in a state of weakness. The lesson is harsh.
It will take time for Israelis to understand that it is not a piece of land that protects them.
What protects human beings are proclaimed and universally respected rights. Does Israel want security? So be it. It will have it when it respects the rights of the Palestinians. It is by making them understand this that we will protect Israelis from themselves.
They must abandon their narcissism and learn reciprocity. It is this value that they sorely lack and that blinds them. In light of the genocide in Gaza and the acceleration of settlement in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 2023, is a Palestinian state still possible?
My work has consisted of showing how, since the creation of Israel in 1948 and even since the emergence of the Zionist movement at the end of the 19th century, the supporters of this movement have never considered the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside the Jewish state they wanted to create.
The maps published by the Zionist movement bear witness to this: they show that the intentions went far beyond what would become Mandatory Palestine after the First World War. They are proof of claims that encompassed parts of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
These claims were put on hold for a long time, as Israel knew that the United Nations, at the time of its creation and when it stood for strong legal principles, would not accept such claims. But the international climate has changed and deteriorated significantly.
The United Nations, and in particular its Security Council, the decision-making body responsible for maintaining peace, no longer has any authority, being condemned to inaction in the face of ongoing conflicts, as demonstrated by the use of the American veto when it comes to Palestine or the Russian veto when it comes to Ukraine.
Yet Israel had solemnly pledged, upon its admission to the United Nations, to respect the Charter and all resolutions of that organisation…
No sooner had this promise been made than it was reneged upon. It should be remembered that in 1949, immediately after the Jews of Palestine proclaimed their state on the basis of General Assembly Resolution 181, which recommended a two-state partition plan, Israel challenged the territory allocated to it by the international community and, during the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war, conquered by force one third of the territory that had been allocated to an Arab state under the partition plan.
It then made West Jerusalem, which had not been allocated to it under the UN plan, its capital. Then, during the Six-Day War, Israel occupied the rest of Palestine. But the military occupation was presented as a temporary situation pending peace.
When peace seemed within reach with Palestine’s recognition of Israel at the time of its proclamation as a state in 1988 and, above all, with the Oslo process beginning in 1993, Israel rigged the negotiations by pretending to negotiate the creation of a Palestinian state, while obstructing the negotiations at every stage by stubbornly refusing to make any progress on the essential points: the return of refugees, the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, the end of settlement and the withdrawal of settlers already illegally settled there.
Was the Oslo process, which promised to lead to a Palestinian state, nothing but an illusion?
That is what I demonstrate in this work. Israel has worked very meticulously and systematically to ensure that at no point have the basic elements of a state been made possible for the Palestinians. Their territory was stolen in the 1948 conquests, then eroded by colonisation, which was initially creeping and then became frenzied; their population is forbidden from gathering; the Palestinian Authority recognised by the Oslo Accords is an administration with no state power; and finally, Jerusalem is denied to them as their capital.
It should also be noted that in all negotiations, it has been accepted as a given that the future Palestine would be a ‘demilitarised’ state. This central concession to Israel’s desire to remain in a position of strength is emblematic of the fact that the issue is not being dealt with on the basis of the principle – central to the United Nations Charter – of the equal rights of peoples.
Why, then, does the international community persist in talking about something that Israel has made impossible?
Quite simply because it is a matter of law. The Palestinians have a right to self-determination in accordance with the fundamental principles of the United Nations. The international community must continue to pretend that it is on the side of the law.
Israel’s Western allies must engage in this pretence because the vast majority of countries in the Global South, which emerged from national liberation struggles, are not prepared to sacrifice their principles. So we are in the realm of communication, pretending that we still want to achieve a two-state solution…
So, is a Palestinian state still possible? The answer would be yes, if there were political will on the part of influential countries. This political will would have to generate mechanisms for sanctions directed effectively against Israel.
Western countries can deprive Israel of weapons or military equipment components. They can break off economic cooperation. Arab countries can use oil as a weapon. These various measures would be likely to bring Israel to its knees. But there is no political will on either side.
What is the solution if the two-state solution is made impossible by Israel?
The solution therefore lies in coordinated and well-targeted sanctions against Israel. For the time being, the Palestinians, whose right to self-determination we must respect, have not opted for another solution, namely a binational state.
It is true that the political representation of the Palestinians is divided and failing. This will inevitably change, but not before the genocidal war against Gaza comes to an end.
