“President Trump has a reality-based foreign policy. His priority is to end the war and get rid of Hamas,” said Eugene Kontorovich, head of the international law department at the Kohelet Policy Forum. “Everyone understands what happens at the United Nations is not recognition of an actual fact but a diplomatic stunt to undermine Israel and reward Hamas.”

To underscore the American position, on Aug. 29, the State Department said it denied or revoked visas to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and dozens of other members of the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. However, the Palestinian Authority’s mission to the U.N. will receive waivers to attend.

This is because the U.N. recognizes the Palestinian state as a non-member observer state entitled to representation at the global summit. Over the years, more than three-quarters of U.N. member states have recognized a Palestinian state, but the United States has steadfastly refused to do so.

Like his presidential predecessors, Trump believes a sovereign Palestinian state could be the incentivized result of a negotiated peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel, not the starting point.

To be considered a sovereign state under the 1933 Montevideo Convention, an entity must have a defined territory, an effective government, a permanent population, and the ability to conduct international affairs. Although the recognition of other countries is also a key component of obtaining statehood, any Palestinian state established today would not meet the minimal criteria, according to Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and the Misgav Institute.

“Even if the entire globe recognizes a Palestinian state, it has no effective government. It can’t exist if it is divided into two territories, the West Bank and Gaza, with no central government,” Michael said. “Most importantly, the State of Israel will not enable a Palestinian state as long as such a state endangers the very essence and security of the State of Israel.”

When it comes to Palestinian statehood, “I think President Trump is on the same page with Israel,” Michael added. 

According to the Washington Post, the administration is considering a post-war plan that would turn Gaza into a kind of U.S. protectorate and not a fully autonomous state, at least temporarily. Trump previously said he would like to see Gaza transformed into a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”

Under that plan, outlined in a 38-page document called the GREAT Trust proposal, which is short for Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration, and Transformation, the territory would fall under a U.S.-run trusteeship for a decade or “until a reformed and deradicalized Palestinian Polity is ready to step in its shoes.”

Public and private investors would develop the Gaza Strip into a center of tech innovation and tourism, with high-rises. Palestinians in Gaza would receive $5,000 and an aid package to relocate. Those who choose to stay would live in designated areas.

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said on social media that the plan has some “intriguing” ideas, but it “does nothing to advance the possibility of Palestinian statehood and independence, something that has long been a precondition for Arab and international willingness to be involved in the coastal enclave’s future reconstruction and rehabilitation projects.”

Equally problematic, it “envisions Palestinians in Gaza giving up their claims to their homes and belongings, either for crumbs as part of a future trust that would entail high-rise buildings and AI-powered cities, or accept a $5,000 initial payment and a few years of rent and basic food support in exchange for letting go of the ability to ever live in their homes, or Gaza, again,” Alkhatib said.

Several world leaders have already rejected the plan and insisted that the only solution is the creation of a Palestinian state once Hamas hands over the hostages and a new Palestinian government takes over. That momentum has become a ground swell.

Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, a human rights nongovernmental organization and U.N. watchdog group, is worried by the recognition trend.

“The declarations won’t create a state, but they are more than symbolic,” he said.

Neuer added that recognition by key Western democracies “marks a profound diplomatic shift.” Until now, he said, the recognition by some 150 countries came mostly from Muslim and non-Western states.

“The danger for Israel is that these new votes will lend legitimacy to a unilateral move that rewards Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities and entrenches rejectionism rather than fostering genuine peace negotiations and maximizing pressure for the hostages’ release,” Neuer said.

HOUSE RETURNS TO PACKED SCHEDULE, LONG TO-DO LIST, AND EPSTEIN DRAMA

Neuer said the U.N. pronouncements “are liable to shift the diplomatic battlefield” and make Israel and the U.S. more vulnerable to campaigns that delegitimize their positions in international forums.

By recognizing a Palestinian state that does not meet legal standards, France and other countries “are corroding the principle that international law must be based on facts,” Neuer warned. “This makes a mockery of international law and strips it of meaning.”

Michele Chabin is a journalist whose work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, the Forward, Religion News Service, Science, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, and the Washington Post.