US warns countries not to join French Saudi UN conference on Palestine: Report

The US is lobbying foreign governments not to attend a UN conference next week sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to a US diplomatic cable reported by Reuters.

The cable, sent to countries on Tuesday, warns them against taking "anti-Israel actions" and says attending the conference would be viewed by Washington as acting against US foreign policy interests. 

France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, is a US ally in Nato. Saudi Arabia is one of the US’s closest Middle East partners.

US President Donald Trump was feted during a May visit to Riyadh, where Saudi Arabia signed billions of dollars of investment deals with the US. 

France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting the gathering between 17 and 20 June in New York.

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"We are urging governments not to participate in the conference, which we view as counterproductive to ongoing, life-saving efforts to end the war in Gaza and free hostages," the cable says, according to Reuters. 

"The United States opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognise a conjectural Palestinian state, which adds significant legal and political obstacles to the eventual resolution of the conflict and could coerce Israel during a war, thereby supporting its enemies,” it added. 

France had been lobbying the UK and other European allies to recognise a Palestinian state at the conference.

However, Middle East Eye reported in June that the US has warned Britain and France against recognising a Palestinian state at the conference. At the same time, Arab states have been urging them to proceed with the move, sources told MEE. 

In late May, United Nations member states held consultations in preparation for the conference, during which the Arab Group urged states to recognise Palestinian statehood.

The Arab Group said they would measure the success of the conference by whether significant states recognise Palestine, sources in the UK Foreign Office told MEE.

Since the 1950s, successive American administrations have stated that their ultimate goal in ending the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a two-state solution. Many experts and diplomats have earmarked occupied East Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza, which Israel seized from Egypt and Jordan in the 1967 war, as the heartland of a future Palestinian state. 

But US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee told Bloomberg News on Tuesday that a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank was no longer a US policy goal. He said Israel’s “Muslim neighbours” could give up their land to create one. 

According to the cable, the US said that "unilaterally recognizing a Palestinian state would effectively render Oct. 7 Palestinian Independence Day”. 

Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people. Israel responded by launching a devastating assault on Gaza that has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mainly women and children, and reduced the enclave to rubble. 

The US cable also said Washington was working with Egypt and Qatar to reach a ceasefire in Gaza and free the captives there. 

"This conference undermines these delicate negotiations and emboldens Hamas at a time when the terrorist group has rejected proposals by the negotiators that Israel has accepted,” it said. 

The Trump administration pushed Israel to agree to a three-phase ceasefire with Hamas in January. Israel broke that agreement by refusing to begin talks on ending the war permanently and unilaterally resumed attacking Gaza. 

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