State Dept won’t endorse French call to recognize Palestinian state

The Trump administration declined to join France in calling for recognition of a Palestinian state, saying instead that it will pursue a “serious solution” in Gaza.

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said on Wednesday that the country could recognize a Palestinian state as early as the start of June, when France and Saudi Arabia co-host a two-state solution conference at the United Nations in New York.

“We need to move towards recognition,” Macron said. “So, over the next few months, we will. I’m not doing it to please anyone. I’ll do it because at some point it will be right.”

Macron suggested that broader recognition of a Palestinian state would lead to the same for Israel, which does not have relations with many Muslim-majority countries.

“Our objective is somewhere in June, with Saudi Arabia, to chair this conference where we could finalize the movement towards reciprocal recognition by several countries,” Macron said.

A U.S. State Department official referred JNS to the French government for further comment on Macron’s declaration.

The official added that “the United States stands fully with the State of Israel in its pursuit to bring all of the hostages back home and defeat Hamas. The groundbreaking Abraham Accords and the devastating Oct. 7 attacks have forever changed the Middle East.”

“This administration will continue to engage our partners in the region on a serious solution in Gaza that secures peace and the release of all hostages, among them five Americans, including Edan Alexander,” the official said.

The State Department also referred JNS to comments that Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy for the Middle East, made in February.

“We need to explore new policy prescriptions that ultimately end up in a better life for Gazans and Palestinians,” Witkoff said at the time. “Look at the discourse that’s now happening today. We’re actually engaging in a productive conversation around what is best for Gaza, and how we can make people’s lives better.”

A second U.S. official, who requested anonymity to speak freely, gave a harsher assessment, calling Macron’s pronouncement a reward for terror. The official said that Hamas needs to be rooted out of power and Gazans must be afforded the chance to experience a semblance of a normal life before talk of a Palestinian state could even enter a discussion.

State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce has repeatedly referred to Gazans as “hostages” under Hamas’s boot.

During the department’s press briefing on Thursday, Bruce told a reporter that “I think it’s fair to say that this is a region that has been in turmoil because of the support of death squads by Iran.”

“You have this dynamic that has been continuing and predictable and not stopping, and ceasefires being broken by the same groups. That’s why when we say, yes, new ideas for Gaza and the new idea that could break the Gazan people free from being hostages themselves of Hamas is the same kind of solution that is also going to help the entire region,” she said.

© JNS