Rubio Visits Israel in Wake of UN Vote for Palestinian State; Israeli Leaders Press to Annex Judea/Samaria

JERUSALEM, Israel – U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Israel this weekend and has met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the meantime, some Israeli leaders are calling for the government to declare sovereignty over biblical Judea and Samaria after the United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to support a Palestinian state.

Rubio began his trip with a visit to the Western Wall for prayer. Even after last week's Israeli strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, a U.S. ally, Netanyahu insisted the U.S.-Israel relationship is solid.

“My extraordinary friend, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and his wife Jeanette, I think his visit here is a testament to the durability, the strength of the Israeli-American alliance. It’s as strong and as durable as the stones of the Western Wall that we just touched,” Netanyahu declared.

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The U.N.'s vote in New York on Friday was 142 to 10, with 12 abstentions, to pass the Palestinian state resolution, in diplomatic speak titled, The New York Declaration on the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine.

The "no" votes came from Israel, the United States, Argentina, Hungary, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, and Tonga.

Israel's Ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, sharply criticized the vote, saying, “This one-sided declaration will not be remembered as a step toward peace, only as another hollow gesture that weakens this Assembly's credibility. This is not diplomacy. It is theatre. A carefully staged performance for headlines, not for peace. It doesn't shorten the war. It prolongs it. It does not weaken Hamas. It rewards them. It does not advance negotiations. It undermines them.”

The Trump administration called the vote "a gift for Hamas," and after the U.N. action, a number of Israeli Knesset ministers called for the government to annex the West Bank.

Justice Minister Yariv Levin echoed the U.S. description of the vote as a reward for terrorism and declared, "The land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel. Even the U.N. decision will not change that. It is time to apply sovereignty to Judea, Samaria, and the Jordan Valley. This is the appropriate Zionist response."