Will Biden’s visit affect Palestine-Israel ties?

Joe Biden is on his maiden visit to Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, especially Saudi Arabia. During his visit, while he saw the new technology — the Iron Beam system — Israel has developed to counter unmanned aerial vehicles from Tehran, he did not forget to express his desire for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the same breath, however, the US President cautioned his audience to keep the expectation low since it would not happen any sooner. In other words, the solution that carries the stamp of the UN and dozens of agreements is used as a relic. Now and then, it is dusted off to remove any doubt that the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem did not belong to Israel. The Iron Beam system, meanwhile, uses laser technology and is integrated with the Iron Dome Defence System already in place. Washington approved a billion-dollar package for the Iron Dome Defence System.

Before embarking on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Biden met Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. However, as speculated, the talk was just a sideshow to the main tour. Biden’s administration avoided any high-level engagement in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because of the prevailing political atmosphere between both parties. The least Biden has done is scarp the decisions Donald Trump had taken to isolate Palestine, such as severing relations with the PA and blocking aid to the Palestinian people. As a result, both initiatives were reversed.

Nearly every US President developed a roadmap for resolving the conflict that meted brutal and inhuman treatment to the Palestinians at the hand of Israel’s law enforcers. President George HW Bush convened in 1991 Madrid Conference to launch the Middle East peace process. President Bill Clinton’s several efforts to negotiate peace culminated in the 2000 Camp David summit and the Clinton Parameters. President George W Bush, besides issuing the ‘Roadmap for Peace’ in 2003, convened Annapolis Conference in 2007. President Obama spearheaded multiple rounds of negotiations in his second stint. And Trump issued the ‘Peace to Prosperity’ plan in 2020.

Biden’s agenda of visiting Israel and Saudi Arabia is not about Palestine. In Israel, his focus of negotiation has been Iran’s rising nuclear capabilities and the US and Israel’s preparedness to counter that. In Saudi Arabia, where he shall also be meeting other heads of Middle East states, Biden shall encourage more countries to normalise relations with Israel. His other agenda is to push the oil-producing countries to increase their production to control the spiralling crude prices stoking inflation the world over.

The only achievement Biden has so far earned is reconnecting both the parties on the phone after a hiatus of five years. The State Department is also making sure that Israel does not repeat its past practice of launching aggression against Palestinians as it had been doing after the visit of every high US official. The last time Biden visited Israel as vice president, then PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced a major settlement move. Though Biden was livid, he did nothing to stop it.

Every warning against the expansion of settlement has fallen on deaf ears. For the first time, Israel has crossed the red line set by every US President since Clinton — to build doomsday EI settlements that would sever West Bank from Jerusalem. The project was to begin on July 18 but is now postponed until September. Despite the EU calling the action against international law, Israel is adamant it will go ahead.

Israel considers its conflict with Palestine a bilateral issue — a ploy to de-internationalise the discord. Abbas has few options to bet on as the Arabs open their arms to embrace Israel.

The International Criminal Courts have silently watched millions of Palestinians perish in hundreds of ruthless attacks, especially on Gaza — a living human prison.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2022.

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