Biden Administration Working on Plan to Restore Ties with the Palestinians

The plan reportedly is still in the “working stage” but is expected to reverse some of the decisions of the previous administration and call for a negotiated two-state solution

US President Joe Biden’s administration is in the process of drawing up a blueprint of how it will approach its relations with the Palestinians, according to an internal draft memo.

The news first reported by the United Arab Emirates-based newspaper The National, that said the plan is in the early “working stage” and that it  could lead to the reversal of some of the decisions taken by former President Donald Trump.

Since coming to office, the Biden administration has promised to restore financial, diplomatic and humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, steps that aim to mend fences with the Palestinian Authority.

Advisors to the president also spoke about a negotiated two-state solution to the conflict based on the 1967 borders, according to the report.

I think Palestinians and Israelis are not paying attention these days to Washington because they have decisive internal elections. Once the election season is over, they might want to look at these issues

Part of the draft memo obtained by The National said the U.S. vision is “to advance freedom, security and prosperity for both Israelis and Palestinians in the immediate term.”

Financial assistance to the PA worth $15 million, for relief from the COVID-19 pandemic, could be announced by the end of March, in addition to the US administration taking a tougher stance on Israeli settlement activities, according to the memo, which also mentions efforts “to obtain a Palestinian commitment to end payments to individuals imprisoned (by Israel) for acts of terrorism.”

The Israeli government has not commented on the report, but Eli Nesan, an Israeli political analyst and expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, told The Media Line that he did not hear anything new in the reported memo.

“This debate took place in the Obama era, and if the new President Biden wants to continue Obama’s policy, this message is doomed to failure, because Israel, under any circumstances, will not return to the 1967 borders in any way. Because after fifty years, things cannot be restored as they were,” he said.

Israel is holding its fourth election in two years next week, while the Palestinians are planning their first general election in 15 years in the coming months.

Daoud Kuttab, a prominent Amman-based Palestinian journalist, writer and analyst, told The Media Line that he doesn’t expect the introduction of any plans anytime soon.

“I think Palestinians and Israelis are not paying attention these days to Washington because they have decisive internal elections. Once the election season is over, they might want to look at these issues,” he said.

Kuttab said that the White House needs to take a different approach to that of the previous occupant of the Oval Office.

“The Biden administration needs to work immediately on two important issues. It needs to have a strong and uncompromising stop to the deterioration of the situation on the ground by affirming its full and unequivocal opposition to any further settlement expansion in violation of UNSC 2334,” the United Nations Security Council Resolution that calls Israeli settlements a “flagrant violation” of international law, he said. “At the same time, it must reverse many Trump decisions including the country-of-origin decision” which recognizes and labels settlement products as being made in Israel, he said.

Prof. Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, told The Media Line that even if the Palestinians are pleased with the Biden administration’s decision to chart a new path in their relations it will be “for almost nothing.”

Rabi said the US should not attempt to come up with a new plan to revive the suspended peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

What would be better, he said, is “if Israelis and Palestinians come up with something suitable themselves and the Americans support it and invest their effort in it.”

“I don’t think that the Americans are going to initiate a kind of a roadmap or come up with a plan similar to the Clinton or Obama days,” he added.

Relations between Ramallah and Washington collapsed after Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.t

The moves infuriated the Palestinians, who accused the US of unfairly siding with Israel.

“I don’t see anything new here,” Hassan Awwad, a US-based expert on Palestinian affairs, told The Media Line. “They brushed the dust off an old plan and will try to repackage it to the two parties involved.”

But Awwad concedes that the old plan is a “step in the right direction, it is the only way forward.”

“The proposed plan is quite a contrast to the so-called deal of the century offered by former president Trump which was biased toward Israel. I think it will be a good starting point,” he said of the reported memo.

The Trump administration broke with decades of previous US positions on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, saying it no longer viewed them as inconsistent with international law.

Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the previous policy “hadn’t worked” and arguments about who is right and wrong as a matter of international law “will not bring peace.”

He said the “complex political problem” could “only be solved by negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians.”

“After the settlement expansion issue is stopped and the country-of-origin issue reversed then there would be opportunities to discuss further steps towards negotiations including the two-state solution,” Kuttab said.

Trump shuttered the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s diplomatic mission in Washington in 2018 and, in 2019, he ordered the closure of the US consulate in Jerusalem, which served as the de facto embassy to the Palestinians in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. The mission became part of the US embassy to Israel in Jerusalem and the previous position of consul-general was dissolved.

Nesan says that the reported plan is “totally unacceptable” and it may lead to tension between the two allies.

“Israel does not want a confrontation with the United States, but if the need arises, and if necessary and there is pressure from the American administration, Israel is not afraid of a clash with this administration,” he said.

He says no Israeli prime minister will accept such a plan.

“It does not matter who the prime minister is, whether Netanyahu or another prime minister, the two-state solution based on the ‘67 borders is not acceptable,” he said.

The Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been stalled since 2014, after several rounds of U.S.-sponsored talks ended without any breakthrough.

Nesan blames the Palestinian leadership for the lack of progress in the peace process.

“It’s Abu Mazen’s fault,” he said, using Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ nom de guerre. “Because Abu Mazen, instead of coming to the negotiating table, he is creating obstacles, he goes to international forums such as the International Criminal Court with his belief that it will bring him the Palestinian state.”