Macron+Starmer=Chamberlain+Daladier:No Munich II

French President Emmanuel Macron, followed by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, have declared that they will recognize Palestinian statehood. Today, Sep 21, 2025, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and Portugal recognized the State of Palestine. Tomorrow, France is expected to follow suit. Right now over a hundred and forty members of that so called organization, the United Nations (UN), recognize the yet to be created Palestinian entity, if ever, with no internationally recognized territory or boundaries. That is no hindrance to the above mentioned European leaders and their supranational organization, the European Union (EU). Their proposed recognition of a state with no recognized territory or boundaries is profoundly ahistorical or even anti-historical yet is entirely predictable from their past destructive and destabilizing behavior which has given us two World Wars and other bloody conflicts as well.

The UK and France, both in a long term decline, vainly try to act as world powers of some sort as they serve as permanent members of the UN (In)Security Council. Both are nuclear powers, having developed these weapons in an attempt to enhance their world standing. Post World War II, they still had significant empires and colonies and looked on themselves as winners of that war. The United Kingdom may have had some such claim but France, occupied for over four years by Nazi Germany and administered under an armistice by a collaborationist government headquartered in Vichy, hardly could claim to be a victor. Free French leader  Charles de Gaulle created the myth of French victory but it is only a myth. "Paris! Paris outraged! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the help of all France, of the France that fights, of the only France, of the real France, of the eternal France!” Really? De Gaulle, leader of Free France and president of the Provisional Government of the French Republic, proclaimed this nonsense at the Hôtel de Ville of Paris on August 25, 1944. One would imagine that D-Day never took place, that General Dwight D. Eisenhower, led American, British and Canadian troops to land in Normandy on June 6, 1944 and took no casualties while the French heroically liberated their occupied capital after four years. Yes, there were Free French troops in the invasion and the resistance played a role in liberating Paris despite de Gaulle’s efforts to maximize the French role. So French myth making and self-aggrandizement is nothing new.

Let’s review some UK and British “accomplishments” and see what messes they have created.

The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 divided Persia into Russian and British spheres of influence and acknowledged Afghanistan and Tibet as being in the British sphere as well. It is of interest that Persia and Afghanistan were notified of the agreement and its terms after its signing, with resultant resentment by the subjects of the convention. Strong anti-British sentiments arose as a result of the UK deciding the fate of the subject nations which endured for many years up to the present with negative results.

The Treaty of Versailles (1919) changed the map of the world and violated the principles of President Woodrow Wilson (Fourteen Points) who failed to stand up to Lloyd George (UK) and Clemenceau (France). Numerous new nations were created in Europe, the colonial maps of Africa and Asia were revised to the benefit of UK and France, and an unstable world was created. Volumes have been written about this failed treaty, and this is not the place to write a thousand pages on it. Suffice it to quote Marshal Foch’s comments to Premier Clemenceau: “They’ll be back in twenty years”. They were, as Germany started World War II. Of great diplomatic significance was the notorious Munich Conference of September 1938. At this conference, the British and French continued to decide the fate of people in a far away country of whom they knew little. Article 231 of the Versailles Treaty was the infamous  “war guilt” clause which assigned guilt to Germany and its allies for causing World War I with the requirement that they pay reparations to the victors. This war guilt clause was instrumental in promoting the rise of the Nazis in Germany. Throughout the 1930s, Britain and France passively stood by as Hitler and his henchman violated clause after clause of the aforementioned treaty. Remilitarization of the Rhineland, re-establishment of conscription and an army in numbers not permitted, establishment of an air force, union with Austria (Anschluss)-all forbidden. By 1938, Nazi Germany was armed to the teeth and was the most powerful country in Europe. If war guilt needs be applied for permitting World War II to occur, France and Britain should be held responsible together with the third member of the triple entente, Russia, now in the form of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The Oxford Oath and pacifist movements convinced the Nazis that the western democracies would not fight. So, in the summer of 1938, Hitler made his “last territorial demand“ in Europe, namely the return of the German speaking part of democratic Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, to the Reich. It is noteworthy that the Sudetenland had never been part of Germany, but German threats of war cowed the British and French into deciding another country's fate. At Munich, again as in previous patterns, the victimized country was not allowed to be present. The British and French acquiesced to the German demands and Czechoslovakia was finished. Five months later it disappeared from the map as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia and as the puppet state of Slovakia. Have we had enough of Anglo- French diplomacy?

By June 1940 France was occupied and a puppet state was established at Vichy. France cooperated with the Nazis in perpetrating the Holocaust, in many cases outdoing the Nazis in committing  crimes against humanity.  After the defeat of the Axis, France wasn’t finished in creating chaos in the post-war world. US President Franklin Roosevelt wanted an end to colonialism and proposed  independence for the three nations of French Indo-China, Vietnam,

Laos and Cambodia. FDR died and General de Gaulle, now the provisional President of France firmly rejected that proposal. The Vietnamese began their war against their French masters and at Dien Bien Phu achieved victory. The US rejected French demands to use nuclear weapons to bail them out, and a conference at Geneva divided Vietnam into two. The terms of the Geneva accord never came into effect with the result of the United States fighting there at a cost of 58,000 American lives.  It is noteworthy that de Gaulle, now President of the fifth French Republic publicly denounced American efforts in Vietnam. All the wars in Indo-China could have been avoided had France been gracious and granted independence after World War II to their colonies. But that’s not their way; Always interfering for their own benefit and denouncing others. We aren’t finished yet with their silky serpentine behavior.

Britain and France held seats on the Council of the League of Nations. That unhappy organization formally went out of business in 1946 and was succeeded by a new creation, the United Nations-which has hardly ever been united. Somehow, the UK and France, shadows of their former selves but now masquerading as the victors of Word War II received permanent seats in the “Security” Council with veto powers. How and why this ever happened remains enigmatic. Though they both have nuclear weapons they remain at best second rate powers if not third rate. Economically they are declining nations, perhaps with a glorious past but with dismal futures. But they won’t yield. They insist on their importance as world powers, but if they are, so is Pakistan.

        Today, to revive the hope of peace and a two-state solution, I state clearly as the Prime

        Minister of this great country that the United Kingdom formally recognizes the State of

        Palestine.                            

                                                    Keir Starmer, Sep. 21, 2025

Starmer’s statement made certain to announce that he was Prime Minister of “this great country”. You can call it Great Britain but not too many people would consider it “great”   anymore. True, it has nuclear weapons and is a member of NATO, for whatever that is worth. The UK ignominiously withdrew from the European Union, and its current Labor government elected in 2024 is quite unpopular. Recent public opinion polls give Starmer a 27% approval rating, 53% disapproval rating with 18% of those polled neutral. With an unpopular government, Starmer would better serve his nation by improving its economy and the quality of life of the British nation. Instead, he focuses on the Middle East as he dreams of the glory days of the UK, which in truth have been far from glorious for many years.

Equally unpopular is the latest Gaullist reincarnation occupying the Elysee Palace. The President, Emmanuel Macron has hit record lows in popularity. A mid-September 2025 poll has Macron at 17% approval and 83% disapproval (IFOP) and even worse in another poll with only  15%approval (Statista). Macron’s France is virtually ungovernable as it resembles more and more the Fourth Republic and its musical chairs game of rotating Prime Ministers. The government is fragile, finances and budget deficits are out of control, and M. Macron dreams of French “gloire”. Alas, he is not le grande Charles as he warms the president’s chair until a successor is elected to deal with his mess.

With totally unpopular domestic programs, these two failed leaders and their hangers on are trying a different approach. When in doubt tack to the Middle East. The Islamic World and the nations of the Southern Hemisphere will enthusiastically support their diplomatic attacks on Israel; A small country, progressive, democratic and prosperous. Who cares about Democratic Peace Theory when oil and petrodollars are available for supporting the petrostates with their sovereign wealth funds? Tibet was sold out seventy-five years ago. Taiwan faces imminent danger, Ukraine is being crucified, but only Israel is causing problems. Starmer and Macron have made it clear where they stand on terrorism and barbarity. Vladimir Putin can sleep well at night. His aggression will go unheeded. Little Israel is the only problem the world faces. The problems the world faces today are too serious to leave in the hands of the Anglo-French dilettantes. No to a Munich II or as they are calling it, a New York Declaration. A previous post on this web site has clearly outlined why a two-state solution is a formula for perpetual war. (Nov. 27, 2024)

Maybe it’s time for clear thinking people to sanction Britain and France and not buy their products or visit their countries. Obviously, all they care about is money. Democracy is not on their agenda. Those of us who think differently should act on our thoughts.

Garry S. Sklar

Las Vegas, NV

Sept. 21, 2025