US shift on Palestinian statehood catches flak

Middle East officials and analysts have condemned recent remarks by the United States' ambassador to Israel, who said he did not think creating a Palestinian state remains Washington's foreign policy goal.

Mike Huckabee, an avowed Christian Zionist who has openly rejected Palestinian existence, was responding to a question in a Bloomberg interview on Tuesday about whether a Palestinian state is still part of his country's policy objectives.

In a separate interview with the BBC, he even suggested that any future Palestinian entity could be carved out of a Muslim country rather than in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg, assistant secretary-general for political affairs and negotiation of the Gulf Cooperation Council, said the ambassador "has made some really outrageous comments".

Dylan Williams, vice-president for government affairs at the nonprofit Center for International Policy in Washington, described Huckabee's comments as "deeply bigoted".

"The abandonment of longstanding US policy creates an opening — and a need — for France and others to finally recognize Palestinian statehood," Williams wrote on X.

Meanwhile, France and Saudi Arabia are set to co-chair a high-level conference in New York next week aimed at advancing the two-state solution, including the recognition of Palestinian territories. France has been rallying European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, to recognize Palestine ahead of the meeting.

In a related move, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the UK have imposed sanctions on two sitting Israeli Cabinet ministers, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. But the actions were slammed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said such moves "do not advance US-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring all hostages home, and end the war".

The comments by Rubio and Huckabee came as the United Nations said in a report on Tuesday that Israel has obliterated Gaza's education system and destroyed more than half of its religious and cultural sites. In addition, Israeli forces "have committed war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination".

'Particularly telling'

Belal Alakhras, a political analyst and researcher at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, told China Daily that the US' role "has been particularly telling", citing its repeated use of veto power on Palestinian matters, including the bid for UN membership.

These actions are more than procedural; they send a clear signal that even symbolic recognition of Palestinian statehood is unacceptable to Washington, Alakhras said. "This also raises fundamental questions about American credibility," he added.

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel also noted in the report that while special attention was paid to the situation in Gaza, the findings also focused on attacks in the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole, and in Israel.

"We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza," said Navi Pillay, the commission's chair.

The commission found that Israel used airstrikes, shelling, burning and controlled demolitions to damage and destroy more than 90 percent of school and university buildings in Gaza, creating conditions where education for children, including adolescents, and the livelihood of teachers are impossible.

"Over 658,000 children in Gaza have had no schooling for 20 months," the report said.

"Israeli forces committed war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and willful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities that caused civilian casualties. In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination."

The report will be presented to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

On the ground, the Gaza civil defense agency said Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting to enter a US-backed food distribution center on Wednesday, killing 31 and wounding "about 200".

There have been a series of deadly shootings since the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation first opened aid distribution points in the Palestinian territory on May 27, as Israel faced mounting international condemnation over the humanitarian conditions.

AFP contributed to this story.