Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday dismissed the recent decision by several U.S. allies to officially recognize Palestine as “largely irrelevant” to negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
The United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia over the weekend formally moved to recognize a Palestinian state, a move “to revive the hope of peace for the Palestinians and Israelis, and a two state solution,” according to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. On Monday during a United Nations meeting, France also announced that it would recognize Palestine.
Rubio, in an interview with CBS News given after the announcements, said, “There is no Palestinian state, no matter how many papers they put out, and the only time there’ll ever be one is if there is a negotiation with Israel, which right now is impossible because they have a war going on with Hamas, a terrorist group that butchered over 2,000 people on October 7.”
He added that the announcement “actually derailed … talks that were going on” about a ceasefire and hostage exchange, which “made it even harder to get Hamas to enter into concessions that might have … brought this to an end.”
Rubio said any possibility of Palestinian statehood “has to be part of a much broader, more complex negotiation” such as determining, “if there’s going to be a state, you need to know, well, who’s the government of that state?”
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