GOP leaders, Jewish orgs decry UK, Canada and Australia for recognizing ‘Palestine’

The House House Foreign Affairs Committee chair said that it is “empty virtue signaling” that rewards “Hamas butchers and rapists.”

JNS Staff

Published September 21, 2025

Republican leaders in Congress and Jewish groups denounced Australia’s, Canada’s and the United Kingdom’s decision to recognize an independent state of “Palestine” and said that the decision rewards Hamas for terror attacks, including on Oct. 7.

Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued an 18-word statement. “Recognition of a ‘State of Palestine’ is empty virtue signaling that only rewards the Hamas butchers and rapists,” he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) stated that “80 years after the end of World War II, where over 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis for simply being Jewish, the so-called civilized world is rewarding modern-day religious Nazis with an arbitrary Palestinian state designation.”

“To those Western leaders who embrace this, I do not believe you are antisemitic, just shockingly ignorant and blind to what you are doing,” he stated. “Western democracies recognizing a mythical Palestinian state—one without leaders, one without borders, one without a capital and one without accommodations for Israel’s security—is truly rewarding the largest slaughter of Jews since World War II.”

Terrorists worldwide will now consider Oct. 7 “liberation day” because of Australia’s, Canada’s and the United Kingdom’s action, according to the senator.

“Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Houthis do not wish for two states,” he said. “They wish to destroy the Jewish people and drive Israel into the sea. Their words not mine.”

The American Jewish Committee objected “strongly” to the three countries’ “formal unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state.”

“This action sends a dangerous signal that terrorism, mass murder, rape, torture and kidnapping are acceptable means of achieving political objectives,” the AJC said. “It will do nothing to secure the release of hostages and will undermine any genuine prospects for meaningful negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. As we have previously stated, there is no shortcut to peace.”

AIPAC stated that “in reality, these countries have not ‘recognized’ a state but rather have given sanction to terror” and that “America must stand with our democratic ally and reject performative posturing.”

Australia’s, Canada’s and the United Kingdom’s actions “will make peace and reconciliation even more elusive by rewarding and emboldening Hamas, and those who have done so are now responsible for the repercussions of this irresponsible and malicious action,” AIPAC said. “It is a moral stain on the countries which ‘recognized’ a Palestinian state and thereby rewarded Hamas for its barbaric slaughter of Oct. 7.”

“As the Jewish state observes the holiest days of the year, these countries obscenely capitulated to evil terrorist forces that reject civilized norms,” the pro-Israel group stated. “All nations who seek an end to the conflict should support Israel’s just and moral battle against the Iranian terrorist proxies and demand that Hamas release the hostages.”

The Orthodox Union said that the three countries are guilty of “a profound strategic and moral failure.”

“Israel left Gaza in 2005, and the Palestinians used the opportunity to build a radical enclave committed to Israel’s destruction, as they made clear on Oct. 7. Hamas has celebrated the recognition of Palestinian statehood as the product of Oct. 7,” the OU stated. “It is patently obvious that rewarding terrorism undermines the very foundation of peace.”

“Israel will always welcome Arabs while the Palestinian territories are by law Judenrein, places where Jews are banned and will remain Judenrein,” the OU stated.