{"id":289640,"date":"2025-07-25T04:19:17","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T04:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/289640\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T04:19:17","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T04:19:17","slug":"us-israel-condemn-frances-move-to-recognise-palestinian-state-israel-palestine-conflict-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/289640\/","title":{"rendered":"US, Israel condemn France\u2019s move to recognise Palestinian state | Israel-Palestine conflict News"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Washington \u201cstrongly rejects\u201d French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s plan to recognise a Palestinian state<\/a>, as the administration of President Donald Trump announced it would not attend an upcoming United Nations conference seeking a two-state solution for Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Posting on X late on Thursday, Rubio criticised Macron\u2019s \u201creckless decision\u201d, which he said \u201conly serves Hamas propaganda and sets back peace\u201d.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Macron had said he would formalise France\u2019s decision to officially recognise a Palestinian state at the UN\u2019s General Assembly in September.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 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,\u201d Macron wrote on X.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 including the US, the United Kingdom and Germany \u2013 have refused to do so.<\/p>\n

Fellow European Union members Norway, Ireland and Spain indicated in May<\/a> that they had begun the process to recognise a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

But Macron\u2019s decision would make France \u2013 one of Israel\u2019s closest allies and a G7 member \u2013 the largest and arguably most influential country in Europe to make the move.<\/p>\n

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the decision, saying such a move \u201crewards terror and risks creating another Iranian proxy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Palestinian state in these conditions would be a launch pad to annihilate Israel \u2013 not to live in peace beside it,\u201d he said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be clear: the Palestinians do not seek a state alongside Israel; they seek a state instead of Israel,\u201d Netanyahu added.<\/p>\n

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz also described the move as \u201ca disgrace and a surrender to terrorism\u201d. He added that Israel would not allow the establishment of a \u201cPalestinian entity that would harm our security, endanger our existence\u201d.<\/p>\n

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 \u201ctake over\u201d Gaza, displace the territory\u2019s more than two million Palestinian population, and transform it into the \u201cRiviera of the Middle East\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s plan has been condemned by rights groups, Arab states, Palestinians and the UN as tantamount to \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d.<\/p>\n

In June, Washington\u2019s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, also said he did not think an independent Palestinian state remained a US foreign policy goal.<\/p>\n

His comments prompted Department of State spokesperson Tammy Bruce to say Huckabee \u201cspeaks for himself\u201d and policy-making is a matter for Trump and the White House.<\/p>\n

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 \u2013 co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, and scheduled to take place between July 28-30 \u2013 seeks to chart a roadmap to end the decades-long conflict and recognise a Palestinian state.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters, Pigott said there was \u201cnothing further\u201d to say about the issue other than that Washington \u201cwill not be in attendance\u201d.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s subsequent 21-month assault on Gaza has resulted in almost 60,000 Palestinians being killed, with a further 144,000 wounded.<\/p>\n

Months-long ceasefire negotiations \u2013 brokered by the US, Egypt and Qatar \u2013 have so far failed to yield a breakthrough.<\/p>\n

On Monday, 28 countries \u2013 including the UK, Japan and numerous European nations \u2013 issued a joint statement<\/a> telling Israel the war on Gaza \u201cmust end now\u201d.<\/p>\n

The joint statement also condemned \u201cthe drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians, including children, seeking to meet their most basic needs of water and food\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Washington \u201cstrongly rejects\u201d French President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s plan to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[32,299,36,2194,837,7424,839,12,1814,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-289640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-gaza","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","14":"tag-middle-east","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-palestine","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-us-canada","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114911953840324129","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}