A recent exchange between U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron may have bewildered pro-Israel partisans who previously took the White House’s reflexively supportive disposition toward the Jewish state for granted. According to Israeli Foreign Ministry reports, the American and French presidents concurred that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not seriously interested in pursuing a peace deal with the P.L.O. This isn’t the first time a conversation between an American and French leader affirmed such an unflattering view of Netanyahu: a hot mic snafu in 2011 revealed hearty disdain (to put it mildly) from Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy for the prime minister’s supposed propensity for lying. However, it’s become something of an unfortunate truism that what Trump says and thinks today may not be so tomorrow. The U.S. president seems to be heavily influenced on a particular matter by whoever last engaged with him. Indeed, this seeming frustration with Netanyahu may dissipate by the next time Trump is called upon to discuss his soon-to-be-revealed peace plan later this year.

But the Trump angle only tells half the story. Rather, what was far more interesting about the conversation between the two presidents was Macron’s apparent contribution. He was quick to point out what has taken many world leaders before him some time to notice about Netanyahu: the Israeli prime minister’s desire is not to upend the status quo, but to diligently maintain it so that the peace process essentially remains frozen, never quite moving forward to make any semblance of progress. Accordingly, Macron stated that if the United States opted not to release its peace plan following midterm elections, France could instead release its own program in the Americans’ place. This follows Spain’s declaration a few weeks ago that it could unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state if the political situation continued to stall.

With the unexpected election of Donald Trump, many on the Israeli right quickly came to the conclusion that the new administration’s friendliness left them with an unprecedented opportunity to push forward with controversial policies that would otherwise provoke  greater American resistance. Of course, it would be unfair to ignore that much of Netanyahu’s current tenure as prime minister coincided with President Obama’s time in office, a period during which plenty of democratic backsliding occurred and patently anti-democratic laws found their way into the Knesset. Nonetheless, had the contentious Nation-State Law passed under a Democratic administration’s watch, it might have received more scrutiny.

Trump’s rise has thus led to an attitude in many right-wing circles that the chance to achieve a fait accompli regarding West Bank annexation must be exploited within the relatively short window of the Trump presidency. But just as nature abhors a vacuum, so too are other global actors highly conscious of the complete standstill (and many would likely say regression) in the peace process, a fact made evident in Macron’s comments. This should hardly come as a surprise, and, to some observers, may seem fairly obvious. Europe has long taken an activist position on Israeli-Palestinian peace, and much to the chagrin of many Israelis, oftentimes vocally criticized the Jewish state.  European states were hardly passive during Obama’s tenure: recall, for example, the UK Labour Party of Ed Miliband passing a symbolic recognition of a Palestinian state as far back as 2014 and claiming in 2015 that upon election his party would seek official recognition. This, long before current Chairman and left-wing firebrand Jeremy Corbyn became a household name.

However, given Trump’s election, which many thought unimaginable just a few years prior, one might forgive the Israeli right for assuming the two-state solution has been definitively killed off. The incoming president’s “might makes right” attitude only compounded this feeling, as Trump claimed American power could essentially dictate global policy at the expense of weaker countries. Yet while the United States may be, without a doubt, the most powerful nation on the planet, it is not omnipotent. The European Union has long served alongside the United States as an anchor of global stability, part of a “moral majority” whose actions carry a disproportionate amount of weight. But the latter has long, even in the best of times, also considered itself a counterweight to American interests, which seems to have prepared Europe somewhat to deal with a superpower that now appears out of step with much of the international community on any number of issues including climate change and the Iran nuclear deal.

Despite the beating the two-state solution has taken over the course of the last two years, the Europeans have remained steadfast, with their positions very likely entrenched further by Trump’s muddled vision and Netanyahu’s increasing lack of scruples. The three most powerful states in the European Union, France, Germany, and the outgoing United Kingdom, have not wavered in reiterating their support for two states, and they have not refrained from criticizing the Israeli government’s excesses that might endanger this preferred outcome, while also continually demonstrating support for Israel.

Neither the rise of illiberal democracy nor the election of populist politicians guarantee a shift in policy among certain states. The impending demolition of Khan al-Amar and the danger it poses to the contiguity of the West Bank not only drew condemnation from countries that might easily be dismissed by the Israeli right as being intrinsically hostile, but even from states like Poland and Italy, whose politicians have routinely challenged European consensus on other Israel-related issues. And despite his best attempts to cultivate ties with newer, more impressionable members of the EU, Netanyahu has not shaken that consensus. A positive trilateral meeting in late August between Netanyahu and the leaders of the  Baltic states was followed by a statement towing the party line that affirmed support for two states.

For many years, the modus operandi for the Israeli right has been one aimed at tiring out the international community. Trump’s election seems to have only strengthened that resolve. However, that very same position has been met by the Europeans in the form of a continued commitment to partition as the only viable long-term goal for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Macron’s plan, not the first of its kind, will likely come to naught, if it is ever actually released. Additionally, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision not to run in the German national elections in 2021 may upend Germany’s role as a bulwark of both intra-European and international stability. In spite of these facts, it seems that for the foreseeable future, the European consensus, at least on this subject, is unlikely to change.