The U.S. State Department declined to clarify its position on a potential Palestinian state on Tuesday, following comments from Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, that such a state within the current Palestinian Authority-governed territory is unlikely “in our lifetime.”
Huckabee told Bloomberg that he doesn’t think a two-state solution remains U.S. policy, and that “unless there are some significant things that happen that change the culture, there’s no room for it.” He told the publication that Palestinians could settle in a Muslim country. “Does it have to be in Judea and Samaria?” he said.
Asked about Huckabee’s remarks, Tammy Bruce, spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, said at the department’s press briefing on Tuesday that “I’m not going to characterize the ambassador’s remarks.”
“I’m not going to explain them or really comment on them at all,” she said. “I think he certainly speaks for himself. At the same time, of course, ambassadors are there and they’re working with their host country, but when it comes to American policy and certainly where the president stands, I’d suggest you call the White House.”
State Department officials have said that major cuts at the agency are intended, in part, to return power to embassies and regional bureaus, and to give ambassadors more sway, including to speak to the media without multiple layers of approval.
A White House official told JNS that “right now, the Trump administration is focused on releasing all of the hostages and ending the war in Gaza.”
“The region has been completely torn apart from this brutal war that began under Joe Biden and needs to be totally rebuilt with the help of Arab nations for all people to live peacefully, as the president has proposed,” the official told JNS.
Reporters pressed Bruce further on Huckabee’s comments.
“I know you said that the ambassador speaks for himself, but he was appointed by the president, and he does represent the U.S. government in Israel,” a reporter asked. “So, is it—is the two-state solution a goal of the U.S. State Department currently?”
Bruce again declined to answer and deferred to the White House. She was asked if the U.S. envoy’s remarks aligned with U.S. President Donald Trump’s statements about clearing Gaza out. Bruce said that “this is a very fluid situation” and that Trump “wants solutions.”
“He wants to make sure that people can live safely in the world, and we’ve seen him, time and time again, make different decisions, have consultations, talk to people nobody thinks he should talk to,” she said. “He can change his mind. He’s clearly transparent, speaking about what he’s going through and thinking each day.”
“Allow us to do the work that we’re doing right now, focusing on the ceasefire, getting aid into that region, and let the president, who’s determined to deal with all of the issues in that region, come to the fore of what happens next,” she added. “We will learn that only from Donald Trump.”
‘Some modicum of decency’
Bruce also told reporters that sanctions, which the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Australia and New Zealand placed on Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for “inciting violence” against Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, are “extremely unhelpful.”
“It will do nothing to get us closer to a ceasefire in Gaza,” Bruce said. “They should focus on the real culprit, which is Hamas.”
Foggy Bottom remains “concerned about any step that would further isolate Israel from the international community,” Bruce said. She added that allies who want to help should support Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special Middle East envoy, in his negotiations and back the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which delivers aid to Gazans.
Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of State, condemned the sanctions and called for them to be reversed. “We reject any notion of equivalence” between Hamas and Israel, he said. (Smotrich thanked Rubio, as did Gideon Sa’ar, the Israeli foreign minister.)
Neither the White House nor the State Department would confirm Trump’s comments earlier this week that the next set of nuclear talks with Iran, set to take place on Thursday. The Iranians have said that the date will be Sunday.
Thursday marks an unofficial, two-month deadline that Trump set to reach a deal with Tehran. The Trump administration acknowledged that the Islamic Republic has stalled for time in previous discussions with Washington.
“The funny thing about negotiations and discussions is that things happen and that there are conversations and progress is sometimes made,” Bruce said. “Not tremendous progress, but enough to keep going.”
“The good news is that, in fact, it would appear that things are moving forward, and that’s what we all want,” she said.
JNS asked Bruce about sanctions issued on Thursday against judges of the International Criminal Court, two of whom were designated for approving arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, then the Israeli defense minister.
Reine Alapini-Gansou, of Benin, the second vice president of the court, and Beti Hohler, of Slovenia, were designated as two of the three members of the pre-trial chamber that issued the warrants. But the chamber’s presiding judge, Nicolas Guillou, of France, was not subject to U.S. sanctions. JNS asked why not.
“That obviously was an internal diplomatic decision made very specifically about specific individuals, which I won’t discuss,” Bruce said.
The French government has suggested that it would not arrest Netanyahu if he traveled to the country. (JNS sought comment from the French Foreign Ministry.)
JNS pressed Bruce on whether excluding Guillou from the sanctions was a diplomatic decision.
“The decisions that go into the nature of when to do a sanction, obviously, there’s a combination of conversations involving national security, what’s in the best interest of the United States, what’s in the best interest of our diplomacy, certainly with our ally Israel and our own national security, and the messages that we send when it comes to expecting America to be treated with respect and to be treated with some modicum of decency when it comes to the international scene,” Bruce told JNS.
“I think that makes that clear,” she said. “But in the sense of the details of that, of course, I can’t comment on that here.”