United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Washington “strongly rejects” French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to recognise a Palestinian state, as the administration of President Donald Trump announced it would not attend an upcoming United Nations conference seeking a two-state solution for Palestinians.
Posting on X late on Thursday, Rubio criticised Macron’s “reckless decision”, which he said “only serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace”.
Earlier, Macron had said he would formalise France’s decision to officially recognise a Palestinian state at the UN’s General Assembly in September.
“In keeping with its historic commitment to a just and lasting peace in the Middle East, I have decided that France will recognise the State of Palestine,” Macron wrote on X.
At least 142 countries out of the 193 members of the UN currently recognise or plan to recognise a Palestinian state. But several powerful Western countries – including the US, the United Kingdom and Germany – have refused to do so.
Fellow European Union members Norway, Ireland and Spain indicated in May that they had begun the process to recognise a Palestinian state.
But Macron’s decision would make France – one of Israel’s closest allies and a G7 member – the largest and arguably most influential country in Europe to make the move.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the decision, saying such a move “rewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy”.
“A Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launch pad to annihilate Israel – not to live in peace beside it,” he said in a post on X.
“Let’s be clear: the Palestinians do not seek a state alongside Israel; they seek a state instead of Israel,” Netanyahu added.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz also described the move as “a disgrace and a surrender to terrorism”. He added that Israel would not allow the establishment of a “Palestinian entity that would harm our security, endanger our existence”.
While supporting a two-state solution remains the long-held official stance of the US, President Donald Trump has himself expressed doubts about its viability. Since returning to the White House in January, Trump suggested the US could “take over” Gaza, displace the territory’s more than two million Palestinian population, and transform it into the “Riviera of the Middle East”.
Trump’s plan has been condemned by rights groups, Arab states, Palestinians and the UN as tantamount to “ethnic cleansing”.
In June, Washington’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, also said he did not think an independent Palestinian state remained a US foreign policy goal.
His comments prompted Department of State spokesperson Tammy Bruce to say Huckabee “speaks for himself” and policy-making is a matter for Trump and the White House.
On Thursday, State Department deputy spokesperson Tommy Pigott said the US will not attend an upcoming conference set to be held at the UN on the two-state solution. The conference – co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, and scheduled to take place between July 28-30 – seeks to chart a roadmap to end the decades-long conflict and recognise a Palestinian state.
Speaking to reporters, Pigott said there was “nothing further” to say about the issue other than that Washington “will not be in attendance”.
There is mounting pressure on Israel to end its deadly war on Gaza, waged in the wake of the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel, which saw some 1,139 people killed and more than 200 captives taken to the Palestinian enclave.
Israel’s subsequent 21-month assault on Gaza has resulted in almost 60,000 Palestinians being killed, with a further 144,000 wounded.
Months-long ceasefire negotiations – brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar – have so far failed to yield a breakthrough.
On Monday, 28 countries – including the UK, Japan and numerous European nations – issued a joint statement telling Israel the war on Gaza “must end now”.
The joint statement also condemned “the drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food”.
