Rubio Revokes Visas for Palestinian Officials, Denying Address at UN Meeting

The U.S. State Department announced on Friday that it is “denying and revoking visas” for Palestinian officials ahead of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York City next month, where several states are expected to recognize a Palestinian state.

In a statement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s office said that it is denying visas to members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA), claiming they are backers of “terrorism.” Rubio’s office also accused the political groups of waging “lawfare campaigns” in international courts and attempting to “secure the unilateral recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state.”

“Both steps materially contributed to Hamas’s refusal to release its hostages, and to the breakdown of the Gaza ceasefire talks,” the office said, not acknowledging the fact that Israel is currently sabotaging the latest ceasefire deal agreed to by Hamas. It said that the PA mission “will receive waivers per the UN Headquarters Agreement.”

It was not immediately clear after the announcement which members of the delegation will be affected, including whether or not Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will be allowed to attend and give his yearly remarks. Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour told reporters that the group “will see exactly what it means and how it applies to any of our delegation, and we will respond accordingly.”

Multiple Western countries and major U.S. allies are expected to recognize a Palestinian state at the meeting, including Canada, France, and the U.K., though they placed conditions on the recognition. The vast majority of member states, 147 out of 193, already recognize Palestine as a state.

U.S. officials have an obligation under the UN-U.S. Host Country Agreement not to “impose any impediments to transit to or from the headquarters district” on representatives of member or observer states.

However, the U.S. has never been a neutral host for UN proceedings, and has revoked or blocked visas for many government officials for political purposes in the past. In 1988, the Reagan Administration refused to grant then-PLO Chair Yasser Arafat entry into the U.S. for a visit to the UN headquarters. In response, the UN General Assembly nearly unanimously voted to convene in Geneva instead to allow Arafat to speak, with only the U.S. and Israel voting against.

Meanwhile, the U.S. has allowed officials like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to visit the U.S. and have free movement, despite the two being wanted by the International Criminal Court over their roles in the Gaza genocide.

The U.S. has increasingly isolated itself on the global stage as one of the main backers of Israel’s genocide. It was the only state in the UN Security Council this week to not sign on to a statement backing the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification’s (IPC) declaration of a “man-made” famine in Gaza and calling on Israel to “reverse course.”