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Paris, July 25: 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

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.

People’s News Monitoring Service