US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in the occupied city of Jerusalem on Sunday, September 14, to discuss Israel’s plans for ending its ongoing genocidal aggression on Gaza, after it ruined the ceasefire talks with its assault on Qatar last week.

The US still backs Israel despite its aggression on Qatar

US President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that Israel must be “very very careful” in its approach to Qatar, describing the Gulf country as a major US ally in the West Asia region.

Moreover, Trump previously said he was “unhappy” with the offensive waged by Israel on the Qatari capital, Doha, which aimed to assassinate senior Hamas leaders.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, stated during a news conference after a meeting with Rubio on Monday, September 15, that he did not rule out launching further airstrikes on “Hamas operatives in foreign sovereign countries in the region.”

Rubio’s two-day visit to Israel was in itself perceived as a symbol of the unwavering support the US maintains for Netanyahu’s government, as the visit began the day before the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held an emergency summit to address the Israeli illegal attack on Qatar.

Rubio warns US allies not recognize a Palestinian State to avoid Israel’s “counter reaction”

Rubio’s visit to Israel also came two days after the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the New York declaration on the peaceful settlement of the question of Palestine and the implementation of the two-State solution on Friday, September 12. The majority of countries voted in favor of the declaration.

A total of 142 out of the 193 member states of the General Assembly voted in favor of the resolution backing the declaration. Ten states, including Israel, voted against and 12 abstained.

Criticizing the decision, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Oren Marmorstein, described the General Assembly in a post on X as “a political circus” that is “detached from reality”.

“Israel utterly rejects the decision of the UN General Assembly this evening,” Marmostein said.

The Israeli official, who represents a government that has massacred over 65,000 Palestinians in less than two years, added:

“Once again, it has been proven how much the General Assembly is a political circus detached from reality: in the dozens of clauses of the declaration endorsed by this resolution, there is not a single mention that Hamas is a terrorist organization.”

Blaming Hamas for the breakdown of negotiations, Marmorstein continued: “There is no reference to the simple fact that Hamas is solely responsible for the continuation of the war, through its refusal to return the hostages and disarm.”

He also claimed that the resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly “does not advance a solution of peace”, but “it encourages Hamas to continue the war”.

Rubio’s rhetoric in terms of the recognition of Palestinian statehood was similar to Marmorstein’s. During a press conference with Netanyahu, when Rubio was asked his stance on several allies of the US, like the UK, possibly recognizing a Palestinian state, he answered:

“These things that people are doing and these different countries are doing at the United Nations, first of all, they’re largely being done because of their own domestic politics. Second of all, they’re largely symbolic. They have really no impact whatsoever in bringing about – bringing us any closer to a Palestinian state.”

Rubio further alleged: “The only impact they actually have is it makes Hamas feel more emboldened. It makes other elements like Hamas feel more emboldened.”

The US Secretary of State warned these allies that “there will be an Israeli counter-reaction” to such moves, threatening that some of these reactions have already happened.

The post Rubio visits Israel after UN overwhelmingly endorses two-state solution appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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