“Our focus remains on serious diplomacy, not performative gestures,” a US State Department spokesperson told AFP. “To those Western leaders who embrace this, I do not believe you are antisemitic, just shockingly ignorant and blind to what you are doing,” Graham said. “I have a clear message to those leaders who recognize a Palestinian state after the terrible massacre on Oct. 7th, 2023: You are giving a huge reward to terrorism,” he said. Meanwhile, Hamas leaders reacted joyously to the news. Mahmoud Mardawi, a senior Hamas official, called the declarations “a victory for Palestinian rights and the justice of our cause.”