After a bullet was fired at Donald J. Trump during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania in July last year, President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority sent him a letter denouncing the violence.
Mr. Trump posted his ebullient response on social media: “Mahmoud — So nice — Thank you — Everything will be good.”
But little is good between Palestinian officials and the Trump administration. Last week, the United States, a staunch supporter of Israel, blocked U.S. visas for Mr. Abbas and his staff, preventing them from attending the annual meeting of the United Nations General Assembly later this month.
Several countries, including France and Canada, plan to use the occasion of the assembly to declare their recognition of a Palestinian state, and a conference focused on recognition of Palestinian statehood is scheduled to take place on the sidelines of the gathering.
Recognition of a Palestinian state does not mean that oneis closer to being established. But the move by these countries carries significant symbolic weight as Israel finds itself ever more isolated internationally over the war in Gaza, in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed.
For Mr. Abbas, the conference would have been an opportunity to revel in the moment on an international stage. Now, he is launching a diplomatic blitz to try and reverse the American decision to bar him.
The United States has rarely barred foreign officials from traveling to U.N. headquarters in New York. Even adversaries like the former Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi were allowed to participate in the annual meeting of the General Assembly.
In announcing the visa ban against the Palestinian officials, the State Department said that the Palestinian Authority should end its efforts to secure “recognition of a conjectural Palestinian state.” The Palestinian Authority is a semiautonomous governing body that has control over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
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France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, a vocal critic of Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza, has helped spearhead the statehood recognition effort. “The American decision not to grant visas to Palestinian officials is unacceptable,” he wrote on social media on Tuesday. “We call for this measure to be reversed and for Palestinian representation to be ensured.”
Palestinian leaders based in the West Bank are working on multiple fronts to try to reverse the American decision. Hussein al-Sheikh, Mr. Abbas’s deputy, sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling on him to reconsider, Mr. al-Sheikh said in a text message. Asked whether Mr. Rubio had received the letter, the State Department said it would not comment on “private diplomatic communications.”
If Mr. Rubio refuses to back down, the current thinking in Mr. Abbas’s inner circle is that he will participate remotely in the recognition conference, according to two Palestinian officials and a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
Palestinian diplomats around the world have been instructed to talk to officials in their host countries about Mr. Rubio’s decision, according to three Palestinian diplomats, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. Mr. Sheikh also discussed the issue with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia on Monday in Riyadh.
“We still believe there is a real possibility that the U.S. State Department will reconsider its decision and issue the visas,” Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shaheen of the Palestinian Authority said in a statement to The New York Times.
For Mr. Abbas, 89, the visa ban has been galling, especially given his efforts to repair his once adversarial relationship with President Trump.
Mr. Abbas sent a congratulatory message after Mr. Trump was elected last year and has largely avoided making public criticisms of the American president.
“Mr. President, it’s your right to be a friend of Israel and to serve Israel as you want, but don’t forget that there’s the people of Palestine,” Mr. Abbas told Al Arabiya, a Saudi-owned TV station, in an interview aired on Monday, addressing Mr. Trump.
Mr. Abbas’s approach has been strikingly different from the one he took during Mr. Trump’s first term, when he barred senior Palestinian officials from having contact with people in the U.S. administration. He was highly critical of Mr. Trump’s decisions to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, cut funding for aid to Palestinians and close the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in Washington.
Since taking office for a second time, Mr. Trump has not called Mr. Abbas, according to senior Palestinian officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak openly about U.S.-Palestinian relations. Mr. Trump has met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on numerous occasions and has spoken to him many times by phone.
Mr. Rubio and Steve Witkoff, the special envoy for peace missions, did not visit Palestinian officials in the West Bank during their recent trips to Israel.
Palestinian leaders are “feeling total frustration,” said Ibrahim Dalalsha, the director of the Horizon Center, a Palestinian research group and a former high-level staff member at the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem before it was merged with the embassy in 2019. “They tried to do a lot of things to develop a strong relationship with the Trump administration, but it’s clear they haven’t succeeded.”
Jehad Harb, an analyst of Palestinian politics, said Palestinian leaders have few options at their disposal. Their efforts to confront the first Trump administration did not pay off, he said.
“The Palestinian leadership is in its darkest days,” Mr. Harb said. “It doesn’t have the support of the Palestinian people; it doesn’t have the backing of the United States; and it isn’t getting enough help from the Arab world.”
All the while, the situation in the West Bank has “become worse than zero on all levels,” he said. He noted the severe economic crisis, the rampant settler violence against Palestinians, and the displacement of tens of thousands in the northern cities of Jenin and Tulkarm by the Israeli military.
“We’re getting to a place where people have nothing to lose,” he said.
Adam Rasgon is a reporter for The Times in Jerusalem, covering Israeli and Palestinian affairs.
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