UN approves summit to create Palestinian state; USA, Milei and Israel reject

Today, 144 countries of the 193 UN members have already recognized the Palestinian state, including Brazil.

The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, also announced this Tuesday that he and the leader of Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, will co-chair a conference on the establishment of a Palestinian state in June. “We have decided to co-chair a conference for the two states in June next year,” Macron said. “In the coming months, together, we will multiply and combine our diplomatic initiatives to take everyone on this path,” he explained.

The initiative for the conference in 2025 is part of a diplomatic offensive by the Palestinians, after it became clear that the lack of a state was one of the reasons that allowed Israel to carry out an attack on Gaza without any constraints.

Since September, the UN has allowed Palestinians to take an official seat in the General Assembly in New York. Palestinian diplomacy immediately presented a resolution calling for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories within a year. It was the first resolution authored by the Palestinians in more than 70 years at the UN, and it was approved.

But the conference will face serious difficulties. US President-elect Donald Trump this week issued a threat to Hamas, saying “hell will pay” if hostages held in Gaza are not released when he returns to the White House on January 20.

“Those responsible will be hit harder than anyone has ever been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump for his “strong statement.”