PRESIDENT BIDEN IS NOT, SADLY, FOLLOWING HIS OWN PRINCIPLES IN THE MIDDLE EAST
BY
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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The
policy President Biden is now following in the Middle East is, sadly,
contrary to his own oft stated principles and hopes for the future.
Repeatedly,
President.Biden has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and
the world that U.S. policy calls for the establishment of a Palestinian
state. Prime Minister Netanyahu, for his part, says he will never
support the creation of a Palestinian state. Instead, he is building
Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank, which Israel has occupied
in violation of international law for more than 50 years. Members of
the Netanyahu government talk of annexing the territory and expelling
its indigenous population.
On
January 28, a meeting took place in Jerusalem aimed at encouraging the
reestablishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. It was
attended by nearly a third of the Netanyahu cabinet, including eleven
ministers and 15 coalition lawmakers. According to The Times of
Israel, “Thousands of attendees from the religious Zionist community
attended the conference. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir
spoke about ‘encouraging voluntary emigration’ of Palestinians from
Gaza, as well as resettling the Strip. Communications Minister Shlomo
Kavhi, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, went further, suggesting
that the emigration need not be voluntary.”
The
Biden administration has been pushing for a reformed Palestinian
Authority returning to govern Gaza as part of a broader initiative that
would see Saudi Arabia normalize ties with Israel, while Jerusalem would
agree to take steps to establish a pathway toward a Palestinian state.
Netanyahu, despite receiving billions of dollars of U.S. aid annually,
has dismissed both the creation of a Palestinian state and allowing the
Palestinian Authority to return to govern Gaza, while refusing to
articulate a viable alternative. In recent weeks, Israel has been
razing Palestinian homes along the border to create a buffer zone. This
has sparked alarm in Washington, which has insisted that there be no
reduction in Gaza’s territory after the war.
It
seems clear that Israel’s government is doing the opposite of what
Washington believes would represent a movement toward genuine peace.
Its leaders are increasingly intemperate. Israel’s president Isaac
Herzog, described as a “liberal,” says there are no such thing as
“uninvolved civilians in Gaza.” Leftist politician Yair Golen says that
the Gazans can just “die from starvation, it’s totally legitimate.”
(Times of Israel, Jan. 30, 2024).
A
statement by a U.S. National SecurityCouncil spokesperson said
Washington is “troubled by the recent Jerusalem meeting calling for the
mass displacement of Gaza’s Palestinian population.” The White House
declared, “We have also been clear, consistent and unequivocal against
the enforced relocation of Palestinians outside Gaza.”
Yet,
as the Israeli government pursues policies which the Biden
administration views as a threat to peace, and as groups such as Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch,and the Israeli human rights group
B’Tselem characterize Israel’s treatment of Palestinians as.
“apartheid,” aid from U.S. taxpayers continues to flow—-with no strings
attached. From 1951 to 2022,adjusting for inflation, U.S.aid to Israel
totaled $317.9 billion, making it the largest recipient of U.S. aid.
At the present time, Israel, a prosperous country, receives $3.8 billion
annually. The Congressional Research Service reports that this aid
includes numerous provisions that are not available to other recipients.
These include aid “as all cash grant transfers, not designated for
particular projects, and transferred as a lump sum in the first month of
the fiscal year, instead of in installments. Israel is allowed to
spend about a quarter of the military aid for the procurement in Israel
of defense articles and services…rather than in the U.S.”
To
provide massive aid to a prosperous country which is violating
international law with a more than fifty year occupation, and which now
rejects the call by both the U.S. and the international community to
create a Palestinian state, makes little
sense.
This blank check for an Israeli government which seems indifferent to
both U.S. interests and Palestinian rights is also increasingly
unpopular with Jewish Americans.
Writing
in the Jewish newspaper The Forward (Jan.19, 2024), Fylan Williams, a
Vice President of the liberal Zionist group J Street, notes that,
“Netanyahu explicitly rejects a Palestinian state, yet continues to
receive U.S. assistance…Expressly rejecting calls by the administration
of President Joe Biden for a ‘day after’ approach that sets Palestinian
statehood as a goal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this
week that Israel ‘must have security control over the entire territory
west of the Jordan River,’ boasting that he ‘blocked the (U.S.) attempt
to dictate a reality that would have harmed Israel’s security.’ These
comments publicly slammed the door on American and international hopes
of resurrecting diplomacy toward a two-state solution.”
In
Williams’ view, “Palestinian government officials who engage broadly
with the international community are practically, and in some cases
legally, bound to recognize Israel’s right to exist—-and notably have
done so since the signing of the Oslo Accords thirty years ago.It is
long past time for Biden to condition assistance to Israel and be
insistent that the recognition must go both ways.”
For
U.S. policy to make sense, our aid should only be used in pursuit of
policies that serve American interests and world peace. President Biden
seems to understand that the creation of a Palestinian state is
essential to achieve peace in the region and isolate an adversary such
as Iran. Yet he continues to provide massive aid to an Israeli
government which intends to annex the illegally occupied West Bank and,
in a worst case scenario, expel its indigenous Palestinian residents.
0ur aid dollars and our policy interests seem to contradict one
another. It is time to bring them into harmony.
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Allan
C.Brownfeld is a nationally syndicated columnist and is editor of
ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism (
www.acjna.org).