Eleven more countries have just recognised a sovereign state of Palestine in a desperate attempt to prevent Israel completing the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and salvage the diplomatic goal of a two-state solution.

They include Australia, Britain and Canada and five EU countries, chief among them France.

Israel and the US threatened retaliation and condemned the wave of recognitions as a symbolic and “anti-Semitic” gesture that “rewarded terror”.

“The time has come,” French president Emmanuel Macron repeated a dozen times at the United Nations on Monday night. The Trump administration violated the 1947 Headquarters Agreement by refusing to allow Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), to travel to New York.

“The worst can happen,” Macron warned, listing present dangers: the continued slaughter of Palestinians as Israeli forces take over Gaza City; the expulsion of the population of Gaza towards Egypt; Israeli annexation of the West Bank;

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