Has Biden proved different from Trump on Palestine?
Naftali Bennett (R) meets U.S. President Joe Biden (L) at the White House on 27 August 2021
Ramzy Baroud writes in The Palestine Chronicle:
When Joe Biden was declared the winner in the US elections last November, expectations in Ramallah were high. A Biden Administration, compared to the brazenly pro-Israel Trump Administration, would surely be much fairer to Palestinians, was the conventional wisdom at the time.
Hence, unsurprisingly, Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, was among the first world leaders to most enthusiastically congratulate Biden. “I look forward to working with the President-elect and his administration to strengthen the Palestinian-American relations and to achieve freedom, independence, justice and dignity for our people,” Abbas said immediately after the results were announced.
Contrastingly, the then-Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, waited for a relatively long time to offer his congratulations, hoping, perhaps, that his close friend and staunch political ally, Trump, would succeed in reversing the outcome of the elections.
Nearly a year later, however, one struggles to understand the Palestinian euphoria of last year, and the absence of criticism of the current US administration for failing to reverse most of the pro-Israel decisions enacted by Trump. The latter’s unwarranted steps included the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the relocation of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all in violation of international law and even the US’ own declared policies.
Considering all of this, why does the PA leadership remain largely silent regarding the fact that the Biden Administration, despite its rhetoric about peace and dialogue, maintains the same degree of commitment to Israel as Trump’s? The short answer is money.