February 20, 2021
Will
Biden reopen channels of dialogue with the Palestinians?
[Translation]
|
Riyad
Tabbara |
* A
former Lebanese ambassador to the United States and a statistics expert
Perhaps the biggest difference between Donald Trump’s foreign policy and Joe
Biden’s can be summed up by the difference between the two slogans, Trump’s
slogan “America first” and Biden’s “America is back.”
When Trump assumed the presidency in January 2017, he openly challenged US
traditional foreign policy assumptions made since the end of World War II. At
that time, the US adopted the Marshall Plan that provided aid to finance the
reconstruction of Europe, and supervised the establishment of international
organizations, chief among them the United Nations and its subsidiary
organizations, and with this it assumed the leadership of the “free world.”
Since Trump took office, the US has withdrawn from several multilateral
agreements, starting with the East Asia Free Trade Agreement (EAFTA) days after
his inauguration, through UNESCO, the Paris Agreement on climate change, the
Iran nuclear agreement, down to the World Health Organization (WHO) last July,
and others.
In contrast, Biden, whose mandate starts on January 20, promised to return as
soon as possible to the international system from which Trump withdrew and to
restore America’s leading role in it. He also promised to mend the rift between
the US and the European Union that resulted in imposing reciprocal economic
sanctions, and to return to the traditional negotiation policy, even with
China, since reciprocal sanctions negatively affect global trade and
consequently the economies of the two conflicting sides.
One of the most important agreements that may potentially change in the Middle
East is the Iran nuclear agreement from which America withdrew in 2018. During
his election campaign, Biden announced that he would open the door to
negotiations with Iran and widen the scope of the agreement to include new
issues, the most important of which is changing Iran’s behavior toward
neighboring countries, including the military activities of its allies in the
region, in return for lifting the sanctions imposed on it.
The most important change in the region will undoubtedly be seen in US policy
toward Israel and the question of Palestine.
Trump gave Israel more than it had hoped for and outdid all US presidents
succeeding Harry Truman who had the upper hand in the establishment of Israel.
Less than a year after Trump took power, i.e., on December 6, 2017, he declared
that the United States recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and that
he began making the necessary arrangements to transfer his country’s embassy to
it. Despite the United Nations General Assembly resolution, immediately adopted
by an overwhelming majority following this statement, which considered the
declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel to be null and void, the US
embassy was moved to Jerusalem in May 2018.
In addition, Trump announced through a “presidential proclamation” in 2017 that
America recognized the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. This was followed in
2018 by the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s office in
Washington, and the US stopping of all funding to the UNRWA that provides
assistance to Palestinian refugees. In the subsequent year, a US declaration
considered that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are legal, followed by a
recent declaration by US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, that Israel is
permitted to stick the label “Made in Israel” on goods manufactured in these
settlements and exported to the United States.
Joe Biden and the Democratic Party oppose most of these measures. During the
elections, the party pledged to oppose the expansion of Israeli settlements,
and any steps made by Israel to annex land. In a speech he made during his
campaign, on the annual conference of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group,
Biden said, “Israel, I think, has to stop the threats of annexation and settlement
activity… And to be frank, those moves are taking Israel further from its
democratic values, undermining support for Israel in the United States
especially among young people…”
There is no doubt that Biden will reopen channels of dialogue with the
Palestinians and restore America’s relationship with UNRWA and the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO). He will also revive, at least in principle, the
two-state solution, and the idea of comprehensive peace between the Arabs and
Israel and move away from the fragmented solution that Trump has adopted
recently. But there are steps taken by Trump that will be difficult for him to
undo, such as recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, or moving the
embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In this regard, he expressed his opposition
to these measures, but he will not be able to reverse them.
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