{"id":105993,"date":"2025-07-30T22:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T22:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/105993\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T22:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T22:54:08","slug":"trump-backs-israel-and-rebukes-starmer-over-palestinian-state-recognition-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/105993\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump backs Israel and rebukes Starmer over Palestinian state recognition | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump<\/a> has doubled down on his backing for Israel after having appeared to give a green light to the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, to recognize a Palestinian state.<\/a><\/p>\n

Amid signs of mounting opposition among his Maga base to Israel\u2019s military operation in Gaza<\/a>, Trump criticized Starmer\u2019s plan to grant recognition as \u201crewarding Hamas\u201d even after having not taken issue with it when the pair met in Scotland this week.<\/p>\n

Talking to journalists onboard Air Force One on his return to Washington, Trump said the US was \u201cnot in that camp\u201d, referring to Starmer\u2019s pledge, which followed a similar declaration by Emmanuel Macron, the French president, days earlier that France would formally recognize Palestinian statehood.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never did discuss it,\u201d Trump said<\/a>, in reference to Starmer\u2019s announcement. He added: \u201cYou\u2019re rewarding Hamas if you do that. I don\u2019t think they should be rewarded.\u201d<\/p>\n

His comments were in line with the US state department, whose spokesperson, Tammy Bruce, called the recognition decision \u201ca slap in the face\u201d to victims of Hamas\u2019s deadly 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which triggered the current war.<\/p>\n

But they contrasted with his restrained stance when he and Starmer met at Turnberry in Scotland on Monday, after the UK prime minister said Britain would give recognition by September unless Israel met certain conditions, including allowing for a ceasefire in Gaza<\/a> and allowing UN food aid to enter the territory to feed its population.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to take a position, I don\u2019t mind him taking a position,\u201d Trump told reporters<\/a> when asked if he objected to Starmer\u2019s move.<\/p>\n

The US president\u2019s response to Starmer seemed markedly softer than his riposte after Macron\u2019s statehood<\/a> announcement last week, which angered Israel and its supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he says doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House. \u201cHe\u2019s a very good guy. I like him, but that statement doesn\u2019t carry weight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initial softer public posture toward Starmer came as Trump publicly contradicted Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a>, the Israeli prime minister, over conditions in Gaza, which numerous international aid agencies have described as famine.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu had said that, in contrast to the aid group assessments and searing images of hungry children, no one was starving in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Asked if he agreed, Trump said<\/a>: \u201cBased on television, I would say \u2018not particularly\u2019, because those children look pretty hungry to me. There\u2019s real starvation, you can\u2019t fake that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of Trump\u2019s most prominent supporters have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of Israel\u2019s conduct, amid polling evidence that Americans generally are losing sympathy for a country that has traditionally been viewed as one of the US\u2019s closest allies.<\/p>\n

Steve Bannon, Trump\u2019s former adviser and still one of his leading cheerleaders with his War Room podcast, told Politico <\/a>that the president\u2019s condemnation of the food situation in Gaza would hasten Israel\u2019s loss of support among his base.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems that for the under-30-year-old Maga base, Israel has almost no support, and Netanyahu\u2019s attempt to save himself politically by dragging America in deeper to another Middle East war has turned off a large swath of older Maga diehards,\u201d Bannon said. \u201cNow President Trump\u2019s public repudiation of one of the central tenets of [Netanyahu\u2019s] Gaza strategy \u2013 \u2018starving\u2019 Palestinians \u2013 will only hasten a collapse of support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Trump supporter, the far-right Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, became the latest \u2013 and perhaps most surprising \u2013 public figure to label Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza \u201cgenocide\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza,\u201d she posted on X.<\/a><\/p>\n

The comments came as a new Gallup poll<\/a> showed support among Americans for Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza down to 32%, the lowest since the organization began asking the question in November 2023 \u2013 a month after the murderous Hamas raid that killed almost 1,200 mostly Israeli civilians and led to another 250 to be taken hostage.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s military response has led to about 60,000 Palestinians being killed, according to the Gaza health ministry.<\/p>\n

While Gallup\u2019s poll showed support for Israel\u2019s offensive still high, at 71%, among Republicans, Thom Tillis, a GOP senator for North Carolina who plans to step down at the next election, said Gaza could be a political problem for Trump, the Hill reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the American people at the end of the day are a kind people. They don\u2019t like seeing suffering, nor do I think the president does,\u201d Tillis said. \u201cIf you see starvation, you try to fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, told Fox News that Trump\u2019s backing for Netanyahu remained unshaken. \u201cLet me assure you that there is no break between the prime minister of Israel and the president,\u201d he told Fox News<\/a>. \u201cTheir relationship, I think, [is] stronger than it\u2019s ever been, and I think the relationship between the US and Israel is as strong as it\u2019s ever been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit Israel on Thursday, where he will meet with officials \u201cto discuss next steps in addressing the situation in Gaza\u201d, a US official told AFP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump has doubled down on his backing for Israel after having appeared to give a green light…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":105994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[99,50],"class_list":{"0":"post-105993","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-israel","9":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114944650402941543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}