Luxembourg to recognize Palestinian state next week

Luxembourg is joining the effort to recognize a Palestinian state at a UN conference in New York next week.

The movement to recognize a Palestinian state has accelerated under the leadership of French President Emmanuel Macron. The reason behind this is that Israel has been carrying out a massacre in Gaza for two years since October 7, 2023.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden told reporters on Monday, “The situation has deteriorated significantly in recent months. Countries in Europe and around the world are now showing that the two-state solution is still relevant.”

He added, “That is why the Luxembourg government is going to join the recognition of a Palestinian state at the conference on the two-state solution next week.”

In July, French President Macron said that France would soon recognize a Palestinian state. Since then, more than a dozen other Western countries have made similar announcements.

Israeli ministers have criticized the declarations as “rewarding terrorism.”

Nearly three-quarters of the UN’s 193 member states have already recognized the Palestinian state declared by the exiled Palestinian leadership in 1988.

Recently, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a declaration calling for “clear, timely and irreversible steps” towards a two-state solution, which excluded Hamas.

Israel and its ally the United States have strongly criticized the state recognition initiative.

Marco Rubio said on Monday that it “emboldened” Hamas, which still holds 48 prisoners, 20-22 of whom are believed to be alive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared last week that “there will be no Palestinian state,” and signed an agreement to advance the controversial E-1 settlement expansion plan in the West Bank.