U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee slammed countries recognizing a Palestinian state as harming efforts to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

While the U.S. has repeatedly blamed Hamas as an obstacle to securing a ceasefire and release deal, an Israeli strike against Hamas officials in Qatar in mid-September effectively ended negotiations being carried out by the Trump administration at the time. 

“The first thing that happened as Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio has repeatedly point out, it just ended negotiations with Hamas. That froze absolutely stone cold,” the US ambassador to Israel said in an interview on Piers Morgan Uncensored broadcast on Thursday.

Huckabee said Palestinian statehood recognition is also harming efforts by the U.S. to resolve a financial crisis between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA), saying Israel will only release tax revenue collected on behalf of the PA if certain reforms and actions are met by Ramallah. 

“We’ve been desperately trying to work some resolve to the impasse between a financial crisis between the Palestinian Authority and Israel,” Huckabee said, without detailing the dispute. 

“There are some issues that are very harmful to the Palestinian Authority. Quite frankly, it’s not good for anyone…but there were some unresolved issues we were making progress on. I’ve been going back and forth between Ramallah and Jerusalem to work on it. When this happened, that ended the discussion and we’re back to zero on that.”

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is in charge of collecting Palestinian tax revenue. The far-right politician, who has rejected the idea of a Palestinian state, openly talked about his efforts to legitimize Israeli control over the West Bank, and worked to expand and deepen Israeli settlements in the territory.  

Huckabee said a third effect of international recognition of a Palestinian state has “emboldened Israel” in its pursuit of annexing the West Bank. 

President Trump, speaking from the Oval Office on Thursday, said he told Arab and Gulf leaders he would prevent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from annexing the West Bank.

“So, all of those things, I don’t think, were the intended consequences of the decision by countries like France and the U.K. to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state. But that’s the result of it.”