BETHLEHEM, Palestinian Territories — After hearing
US President Joe Biden identify
Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and concede a two-state solution seemed “far
away”, one Palestinian official gave a blunt assessment of Biden’s visit to the
region.
اضافة اعلان
“It’s like the
Trump years with a smile,” said the official, who requested anonymity.
Biden’s
predecessor Donald Trump was loathed among Palestinians over his unequivocal
pro-Israeli policies.
With Israeli
politics gridlocked, few thought that 79-year-old Biden could jumpstart peace
talks which have been moribund since 2014.
But there was
tempered optimism that Biden’s meeting Friday with Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank town of Bethlehem could deliver modest
results.
Palestinians had
hoped the US president would finally make good on a promise to reopen a
consulate for Palestinians in
Jerusalem.
The mission was
shuttered by Trump in 2019 and its revival is staunchly opposed by Israel,
which considers the city its “undivided” capital.
Reopening the
mission could serve as a “shot in the arm” for the peace process, said another
Palestinian official speaking anonymously.
But the US
leader offered no substantive plan to redress Israel’s occupation, even
side-stepping illegal Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank, an issue
highlighted by former president
Barack Obama’s administration, in which Biden
served as vice president.
The US
delegation, however, did announce plans for 4G internet access in the West Bank
and the Israeli-blockaded
Gaza Strip, addressing a longstanding demand by
Palestinians which has repeatedly been blocked by Israel.
Biden’s Zionist
declaration
The president’s visit got off to a bad start for Palestinians, when
Biden declared at an Israeli welcome ceremony: “You need not be a Jew to be a
Zionist.”
While every US
president since Israel’s creation in 1948 has arguably met a technical
definition of Zionism by actively supporting the Jewish state’s existence,
Biden’s comment last Wednesday was rare, if not unprecedented for a US leader —
and Palestinians took note.
“He came to Israel
and declared he was a ‘
Zionist’, then he came to Palestine and refused to talk
about the fundamentals of the conflict,” the first official said.
A protester
attending a rally during the president’s visit to Bethlehem hoisted a sign
saying: “Biden, Jerusalem is Palestine — no matter your Zionism.”
Palestinians
claim Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem as their capital.
Biden has for
decades publicly supported recognizing West Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and
has said he will not reverse Trump’s controversial decision to move the US
embassy there back to Tel Aviv.
‘We are so weak’
On the peace process, Biden
reaffirmed his support for Palestinian statehood while urging perseverance even
as conditions appear bleak.
“I know that the goal of the two states seems so far
away,” he said in Bethlehem.
“But we never give up on the work of peace,” he
added. “There must be a political horizon that the Palestinian people can
actually see or at least feel. We cannot allow the hopelessness to steal away
the future.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on
Sunday said a difficult terrain for peace talks does not excuse American
inaction.
“If, as the US president said, the (two-state)
solution is currently out of reach, then there must immediately be a (Jewish)
settlement freeze, in accordance with international law and resolutions to
preserve the right of the Palestinian people to their independent state,”
Shtayyeh said.
For Tahani Mustafa, West Bank analyst at the International
Crisis Group think-tank, Biden’s visit left “no indication that the situation
of the Palestinian people has any place in his administration’s agenda”.
According to sources close to the Palestinian
leadership, initial plans to issue a joint Biden-Abbas statement on Friday were
scrapped because the sides could not agree on wording.
For Palestinians seeking
US leadership capable of
forcing Israeli concessions, seeing Biden’s delegation jet off from Tel Aviv to
Saudi Arabia on Friday after a short, unremarkable meeting with Abbas brought
familiar feelings of disappointment.
“As usual, we are left with the crumbs,” Issa Abu
Ayash told AFP, as he watched television in a Bethlehem cafe broadcasting
images of Biden’s motorcade heading to Israel’s airport.
“We are so weak here,” he said.
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