Israel-Palestine US policy: What changed under Biden, what didn’t
Israeli and United States flags at the Israeli president’s residence in Jerusalem ahead of Joe Biden’s visit to Israel, July 2022
Ali Harb writes in Aljazeeera on 12 Jul 2022:
A self-proclaimed Zionist, President Joe Biden is often cited by his top aides as saying that if there were no Israel, the United States would have to create one. So when Biden took the White House, Palestinian rights advocates and Arab-American voters who backed him did not set high expectations for a change in US posture towards Israel under his leadership.
Still, amid pledges from the Biden campaign and an early presidency of pursuing a foreign policy that would centre on human rights, many had hoped the president would at least reverse some of his predecessor Donald Trump’s moves that had further aligned the US with Israel.
But rights advocates say the Democratic president has so far failed to deliver on his modest promises to Palestinians with the current US position remaining closer to what it was under Trump than what it had been under Barack Obama. As Biden heads to Israel for the first time as president, Al Jazeera looks at what Trump policies Biden has changed and which ones he kept in place:
US embassy in Jerusalem
Of all of Trump’s policy shifts in favour of Israel, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv was perhaps the most consequential one. The 2018 move gave a practical US endorsement for Israel’s claims to the entire holy city as its capital.
Israel had illegally annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 after capturing it in 1967.
While Palestinians voiced outrage against the move and the United Nations overwhelmingly declared it “null and void“, the decision was cheered by politicians from both major parties in Washington.
With a muted Arab response, Trump declared Jerusalem “off the table” ahead of relocating the embassy.
For Biden, returning the embassy to Jerusalem was never a serious consideration. Under his administration, the US has treated Jerusalem as the capital of Israel while using ambiguous language to describe how it views East Jerusalem.
For example, the US Department of State’s annual country report on human rights includes East Jerusalem under the section on Israel. But it adds a caveat: “Language in this report is not meant to convey a position on any final status issues to be negotiated between the parties to the conflict, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem or the borders between Israel and any future Palestinian state.”
Jerusalem consulate for Palestinians
In 2019, Trump shuttered a consulate for Palestinian affairs in Jerusalem, folding its functions into the Israeli embassy in the holy city.
The move severed ties with the Palestinians and spelled out a US rejection of their claims to Jerusalem.
As a candidate, Biden promised to reopen the consulate, but more than a year and a half into his administration, the move has not materialised.
While US officials say they are still committed to re-establishing the diplomatic post, Biden and his top aides have been reluctant to publicly clash with Israel, which opposes reopening the consulate.
“As President, Biden will take immediate steps to restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, consistent with US law, including assistance to refugees, work to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem, and work to reopen the PLO mission in Washington,” Biden’s campaign said in a platform for Arab American voters in 2020.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s mission to Washington – closed by Trump in 2018 – has not been reopened under Biden either, amid bipartisan domestic pressure against the move.
Settlements
As a candidate, Biden pledged to oppose annexation and settlement expansion.