US President Donald Trump said during a state visit to the United Kingdom on Thursday that he disagreed with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s plan to recognize a Palestinian state, amid reports that Starmer is gearing up to do so once the US president has departed the country.
Speaking at a press conference alongside the British leader outside London, Trump said he had “a few disagreements with the prime minister on that score, one of our few disagreements, actually.”
Starmer said that he and Trump nevertheless agreed on the ultimate aim of peace in the region.
“We absolutely agree on the need for peace and a road map,” said the British leader, calling on Gaza’s terror groups to release the remaining 48 hostages and for Israel to surge aid into the war-torn territory. “Because the situation in Gaza is intolerable.”
Turning to the matter of the hostages, Trump said he wanted all of them released immediately, in one phase, “not one, not two, or ‘We’ll give you three tomorrow.'”
“We have to have the hostages back immediately,” he said. “That’s what the people of Israel want. And we want the fighting to stop,” said Trump, “and it’s going to stop.”
During his opening remarks, Trump said that the US was “working very hard on Israel and Gaza and all that’s happening over there,” and that it was “going to get done.”
“But you never know with war,” he mused. “War is a different thing. Things happen that are the very opposite of what you thought. You thought you could have an easy time or a hard time, and it turns out to be the reverse.”
Starmer was asked, during the press conference, about reports that he was planning to formally recognize a Palestinian state after Trump leaves the UK on Thursday evening. An unsourced report by The Times on Wednesday said Starmer planned to recognize Palestine even before several countries, led by France, would do so at the United Nations General Assembly summit in New York later this month.
Starmer did not comment on the timing, but insisted to reporters that it had “nothing to do with this state visit.”
“I’ve discussed it with the president, as you would expect, amongst two leaders who respect each other and like each other and want to bring about a better solution in the best way that we can,” he added.
Despite their disagreements as to what the future of Palestinian statehood should look like, Trump and Starmer still agreed on some aspects, including when the British leader denounced Hamas as “a terror organization that can have no part in any future governance in Palestine.”
That comment, which came in response to an inquiry as to whether recognizing Palestine may be seen as a reward to Hamas, earned Starmer a smile and a pat on the back from Trump.
The British leader asserted that the terror group is itself opposed to the UK’s peace plan, as even though recognition of a Palestinian state is one of its key parts, it still envisions a two-state solution, which the group opposes.
Critics of the recognition plans have said this point is moot, and that Hamas will be able to sell recognition as a win to the Palestinian street and as a direct result of the horrors it unleashed on October 7, 2023.
Anger has been brewing in the UK and Europe over the humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip, which have been compounded by Israel’s widening offensive in the densely populated Gaza City, and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more Palestinians.
On Thursday, Italy indicated that it could back European Union trade sanctions against Israel over the Gaza war.
Addressing the Italian Senate, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Rome was open to considering sanctions as long as they would not harm Israel’s civilian population.
He said Rome was also in favor of sanctioning Israeli ministers who have “unacceptable” positions on Gaza and the West Bank.
While he didn’t name any ministers directly, a slew of European countries have banned or sanctioned the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The European Commission is mulling the possibility of curbing its free-trade agreement with Israel and putting sanctions on the two lawmakers, as well as violent West Bank settlers. Implementing the measures will require the support of most members of the 27-nation bloc.
Taking an opposing stance to Europe, meanwhile, was US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who said on Thursday that he felt “outrage” at international anger at Israel over the war in Gaza, and dismissed the possibility of diplomacy bringing about a solution when dealing with an organization like Hamas.
“This kind of savagery can’t be dealt with by diplomacy and talking,” Huckabee said at Reichman University’s World Summit of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism. “One has to have some level of morality to sit down and talk – and Hamas does not. If that’s diplomacy, I want no part of it.
“Diplomacy that is nothing more than babble and vanilla-coated nonsense, and believing that everyone is on the same side, with slight variations of opinion, that’s going to get us killed,” said Huckabee.
“We have to understand that is a difference between the forces of heaven and the forces of hell. If we don’t understand that, we’re only going to see more terrorism that will kill more innocent people across this planet.”
Israel, he said, has “no choice but to end the Hamas occupation of Gaza.”
“To do anything less than end Hamas rule in Gaza would be as ridiculous as it would have been to leave the Nazis in power in Germany after World War II.”
He blamed the “Europeans, the Canadians, and others” for pressuring Israel to end the war in Gaza, saying that doing so “makes no sense.”
“It’s not Israel that needs to end this,” he asserted. “Hamas needs to end this. Trump has consistently said that Hamas has no future, and that Hamas cannot rule in Gaza, and that all the hostages need to be released immediately.”