The annual U.N. General Assembly will be preceded by a Monday conference at which at least six states will officially back a Palestinian state.
(Sept. 21, 2025 / JNS) A high-level summit in support of a Palestinian state is expected to grab headlines at the United Nations on Monday, a day ahead of the start of the annual U.N. General Assembly debate week.
While at least seven countries are reportedly planning to officially declare recognition of Palestinian statehood for the first time, the conference may be just as notable for those who will not be there.
Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of summit co-organizer Saudi Arabia, does not plan to attend, and a number of states are reportedly shying away due to U.S. pressure.
Bin Salman held a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss their joint effort, with Paris thus far offering little in the way of details of how Monday’s summit will play out.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also will not be attending, though he was front and center to declare the United Kingdom would back Palestinian statehood during a French-Saudi-led conference on the topic in July.
The United Kingdom and France, together with Australia, Belgium, Canada, Malta and Portugal, have announced their intention to recognize a Palestinian state at the event.
Like the United Kingdom, Germany will only send its foreign minister, but Berlin will not offer recognition.
Additionally, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has reportedly backed out of the summit altogether, after being scheduled to offer comments on the situation in Gaza and push for a two-state solution, though Palestinian state recognition does not appear to have been firmly on the table for Tokyo.
Multiple sources indicate that Washington remains firm in its plans to skip the summit, even as new U.S. ambassador Mike Waltz officially starts on the job on Sunday. The United States avoided the July conference, blasting it as a publicity stunt and waste of time that does not reflect the reality on the ground.
“We warned them that we thought that was counterproductive,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week while visiting Israel, about Washington’s message to those discussing Palestinian state recognition.
“We actually think it’s undermined negotiations, because it emboldened Hamas, and we think it undermines future prospects of peace in the region,” Rubio said, adding that the United States thinks the conference has led directly to a renewed push by the hard-right members of Israel’s government to apply Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria.
Israeli officials also said Jerusalem will again stay away.
Danny Danon, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, told JNS he expects the event to “descend into a charade and circus of empty statements of recognition,” adding “We won’t see real substantive discussion over how to solve the most pressing issues in the Middle East,” including “the urgent need to return the 48 hostages still held” in Gaza and “how to dismantle the Hamas terrorist organization responsible for this conflict.”
Even the Palestinians themselves will have to dial in from Ramallah, with the Trump administration denying visas to Palestinian Authority officials to visit New York.
Ahead of the summit, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to approve the non-binding “New York Declaration” which resulted from July’s Palestinian state conference.
The body voted 142-10, with 12 abstentions, in favor of the resolution, which outlines a phased plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Israeli-Palestinian issue is likely to carry into the high-level debate week, with a U.N. Security Council meeting on the topic set for Tuesday afternoon, hours after U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the General Assembly.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to take to the General Assembly dais on Friday morning, with bilateral meetings scheduled late in the week with counterparts from Argentina, Serbia and Paraguay. Netanyahu will visit Trump at the White House next Monday.
It is possible that Israel and Syria may have a new security agreement in place by then, with Netanyahu scheduled to hold a Cabinet meeting on the subject on Sunday.
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is reportedly due to meet with Trump in New York, and will speak at the General Assembly on Wednesday, becoming the first Syrian head of government or state to do so.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas will address the gathering remotely on Thursday morning due to the visa issue.
21/09/2025 by JNS
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