French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday that his upcoming United Nations conference with Saudi Arabia promoting international recognition of a Palestinian state has been postponed following Israel’s attack on Iran.

Speaking to reporters from Paris, Macron said that the conference would need to be rescheduled for logistical purposes, citing the inability of Palestinian Authority officials to travel to U.N. headquarters in New York next week to participate. 

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stood strongly behind Israel in his first public comments on its strikes on Iran and its nuclear program on Friday afternoon — a response that was notably more forceful in its support for Israel than those of many prominent members of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

“The United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and defense must be ironclad as they prepare for Iran’s response,” Schumer said in a statement first shared with Jewish Insider. “The Iranian regime’s stated policy has long been to destroy Israel and Jewish communities around the world. I have long said that Israel has a right to defend itself and that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Ensuring they never obtain one must remain a top national security priority.”

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is departing today for Saudi Arabia, the first leg of an Abraham Accords-themed congressional delegation that also plans to visit Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Israel and meet with leaders in each country. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL), who is leading the delegation, told Jewish Insider that the trip will take place even as Israeli strikes against Iran continue. 

“I think the timing just becomes all that much more important,” Schneider said in an interview on Friday. “Last night, Iran took a significant hit to its nuclear program and its military. So I think and hope maybe it opens up possibilities. We’ll find out.” 

Talk show host Tucker Carlson broke with President Donald Trump on Iran on Friday, writing in a scathing commentary in his daily newsletter that the United States should “drop Israel” and “let them fight their own wars.”

“If Israel wants to wage this war, it has every right to do so. It is a sovereign country, and it can do as it pleases,” Carlson wrote of Israel’s preemptive strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “But not with America’s backing.”

Jason Brodsky, the policy director for United Against Nuclear Iran, told Jewish Insider on Friday morning that he sees Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets as an effort at coercive diplomacy — in full coordination with the Trump administration — attempting to force Iran into a more restrictive nuclear deal amid its recalcitrance in talks with the U.S.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Daniel Shapiro, a deputy assistant secretary of defense under the Biden administration, U.S. ambassador to Israel under the Obama administration and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said in an interview with Jewish Insider on Friday morning that Israel’s strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities would likely halt any further efforts toward a diplomatic solution to Iran’s nuclear program. 

Shapiro also said that major questions ahead for the region will be if and under what circumstances the U.S. would directly join Israeli strikes on Iran, and whether the strikes prompt Iran to attempt to make a sprint to a nuclear bomb.

Israel’s strikes on Iranian military and nuclear targets are prompting fractured responses from Senate Democrats, with a few offering full support for Israel and others forcefully condemning the strikes, while some have sought to carve out a path somewhere in the middle.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the top Senate Democrat, is the only one of the top four congressional leaders who has yet to speak out about the attacks. 

President Donald Trump told Fox News anchor Bret Baier on Thursday evening that the United States will defend Israel if Iran retaliates following Israel’s strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets, and that he still intends to resume nuclear negotiations with Tehran.

“Iran cannot have a nuclear bomb and we are hoping to get back to the negotiating table. We will see. There are several people in leadership that will not be coming back,” Trump said, according to Fox News. U.S. officials are still aiming to continue with nuclear talks in Oman on Sunday, Reuters reported.