Jean-Noël Barrot claims that his country’s lead on the recognition of Palestine has isolated Hamas. He misunderstands that Hamas and the PLO share the same goal and only differ on strategy.

This past Friday, the UN general assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution calling for “a peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine.” It was approved by 142 countries, including China, Iran, Myanmar, Russia, and Sudan. No doubt, the Tibetans, the Kurds, the Rohingyas, the Ukrainians, and the Darfuris will be glad to learn that those five governments believe in self-determination, in human rights, and in international law. This is the UN in a nutshell: an organization that was established by the Allies to prevent a return to the might-is-right policies of the 1930s, and that has been highjacked by autocracies to fight the free world with its own ideas and tools.

The resolution endorses the so-called New York Declaration, published jointly by France and Saudi Arabia in July. The declaration condemns Hamas for the October 7 massacres, but it also condemns Israel for responding to those massacres. This is a typical example of the UN’s moral equivalence, in that case between atrocities perpetuated against civilians by Jihadists with genocidal intent, and a democracy fighting those Jihadists to defeat them and to get back its hostages while respecting the restrictions of international law.

The resolution says that Israel must end the war, and that Hamas must abandon power and lay down its arms. Those two statements are self-contradictory, because only the Israeli army can bring about the defeat and the capitulation of Hamas. Hamas is not going to give up power and its weapons just because a UN general assembly resolution says it should. The declaration says Hamas must transfer power and weapons to the Palestinian Authority (PA) even though, in 2007, Hamas took over the PA regime in Gaza by force. By what logic would it now return it to the PA?

The New York Declaration also says that the State of Palestine will be demilitarized and democratic. This statement does not even pass the laugh test. Under Hamas, the Gaza Strip had become a huge military complex built by Iran and funded by Qatar. The fate of the West Bank would have been identical if Israel had withdrawn from it, and it will become identical if Israel were to withdraw from it. As for democracy, the PA was established 30 years ago, and it has never been democratic. Why would that change with full statehood? There are 21 Arab states today. None of them is democratic. By what logic would a 22nd Arab state led by the PLO be democratic?

Finally, the New York Declaration endorses UNGA resolution 194 from 1948, which the PLO sees as the legal basis for the so-called “right of return.” The PLO rejected the peace proposals of Ehud Barak in July 2000, of Bill Clinton in December 2000, of Ehud Olmert in September 2008, and of John Kerry in February 2014, precisely because those proposals did not include the application of the “right of return” to Israel itself.

What the PLO means by the “two-state solution” is the demise of Israel by establishing an armed state in the West Bank and Gaza, and by flooding Israel with millions of Arabs who claim descent from the refugees of 1948. This is exactly what the PLO decided in the “Phased Plan” adopted in Cairo in 1974, and this is what Arafat meant to do when he signed the Oslo agreements three decades ago.

So when French foreign minister Jean Noël Barrot says that Friday’s vote at the general assembly constitutes a defeat for Hamas, he’s being the PLO’s dupe because the PLO shares Hamas’ endgame though not its strategy. The PLO’s strategy consists of proceeding by phases, and of hiding the endgame behind international law, justice, and peace.

Mr. Barrot seems to not understand that most Israelis can no longer be fooled by this charade. A majority of Israelis agree that the PLO cannot be allowed to establish a 22nd failed, violent, and autocratic Arab state in Israel’s heartland, not least because the only purpose of such a state has always been, and always will be, to “free Palestine” from the River to the Sea.