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Comment by wernercd | Hacker News Reader

Because there's never been a country named "Palestine" and as such it's hard to make agreements with a country that doesn't exist.

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The United States helped establish and continues to recognize the Palestinian National Authority, which is the recognized governing body of what ostensibly would become a Palestinian state. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_National_Authority

The U.S. also recognizes passports issued by the PNA, though w/ caveats given the lack of nominal statehood.

The PA has no control over Gaza - in fact they were kicked out of gaza by hamas.

"what would become" and that changes my statement that Palestine has never existed how?

The point is that the U.S. is fully capable of having a political relationship with entities it doesn't recognize as a sovereign state.

Take Taiwan as another example. Both the context and details are completely different from that of the PNA, but it nonetheless contradicts your premise in the same manner.

Taiwan is a nation with a functioning government and actual borders it controls.

Unlike Palestine.

Mandatory Palestine certainly existed. Although you may argue it wasn't a country, because it was under the administration of the British.

The current State of Palestine exists, and is recognized in many forums, although not by all participants; but it doesn't have de facto sovereignty as it's essentially occupied.

... in the US Government's (and some of its allies') perspective (NB: there are definitely some caveats and the most "Israel-only" policy is in the Trump era but in practice this is how it works). Most Arab countries (for some, until recently) have the inverse: they only recognize the Palestinian government and never the Israeli government. Some governments choose a more pragmatic "both Israel and Palestine exists but their land borders are definitely not defined well".

The US seems to manage OK forming relationships with Taiwan, for example.

Taiwan has a working government.

And, I'd argue, it's willing to negotiate in good faith. The PLO, over the decades, has turned down anything that doesn't give it 100% of what it wants (basically, the destruction of Israel).

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