Amid an international push for recognition of a Palestinian state, NASA has removed the “Palestine, state of” option on one of its online forms in response to a JNS query.
The “connect with us” form on the US space agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center website allows other US agencies, research institutions and the general public to inquire about opportunities for partnership and collaboration.
But the contact form no longer includes an option to select the state of Palestine when users select their country of origin.
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention. This option and any similar features have been removed from NASA websites,” Bethany Stevens, NASA’s press secretary, told JNS.
Stevens was formerly press secretary to Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who strongly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state.
In recent days, the US Department of Agriculture and a city administration in Arkansas have also removed references to the state of Palestine from their websites after queries from JNS.
In May 2024, Xavier Becerra, then US secretary of health and human services, referred to “Israel and Palestine” during a speech at the 77th World Health Assembly. A spokesperson for the department told JNS at the time that Becerra had misspoken and did not intend to reflect a change in American policy.
Under the second Trump administration, the State Department has repeatedly been asked to clarify its position on a two-state solution.
While it publicly opposed a recent French and Saudi-led UN conference on the topic, State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce has said on multiple occasions that the administration’s focus in the region is on ending the Israel-Hamas war, returning the hostages held in Gaza and seeing that Hamas is removed from power, declining to outline the administration’s own policy on a Palestinian state.
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