US officials weighing steps Biden could take to preserve two-states after election
Sanctioning Ben Gvir and Smotrich is at the top of a list that would get longer if Harris wins, US officials tell ToI; could also include leveraging US security aid to Israel
US officials have been deliberating steps that the administration could take during the lame-duck period to curb the effort by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to expand Israel’s footprint in the West Bank, a current and a former senior US official told The Times of Israel this week.
The nearly three-month period from the November 5 presidential election to the January 20 inauguration will come with additional “political flexibility,” which will allow space for more confrontational policies vis-a-vis the Israeli government, said the current US official.
The list of steps US President Joe Biden could take would be longer if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election since she is less likely to reverse them, a former senior US official explained. The official added that Harris would also be shielded from any political backlash of such moves due to them being seen as part of her predecessor’s legacy.
The former senior US official acknowledged that certain steps would be less likely taken if former president Donald Trump wins the election because he would be able to roll them back upon returning to office. However, some policies still might be implemented anyway because they would set a precedent that would give other Western countries the legitimacy to follow suit, as was the case with the sanctions that the Biden administration began implementing against extremist settlers in the West Bank.
Sanctioning Ben Gvir and Smotrich
While no formal list has been compiled, one idea raised by a large number of Biden aides has been to sanction far-right Israeli cabinet members National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich under that same executive order targeting individuals and entities destabilizing the West Bank, said the current and former US officials.
The White House considered making this move already in July, but Biden decided against the idea, arguing that the US should not be sanctioning the ministers of democratically elected countries, US officials told The Times of Israel at the time.
Religious Zionist party head MK Bezalel Smotrich with Head of the Otzma Yehudit party MK Itamar Ben Gvir at a vote in the assembly hall of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, on December 28, 2022. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
The current US official speaking to The Times of Israel this week speculated that there would be another push to convince the president to take the unprecedented step. They argued that Biden would likely be more open to the idea since his frustration with the Israeli government has peaked over the lack of ceasefire in Gaza.
The White House views Hamas as chiefly responsible but also feels that Netanyahu shares much of the blame for impasses that suited the positions of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who have threatened to collapse the government if a hostage deal is reached.
“When he entered office, the president wasn’t at a place where he would back sanctions against Israeli extremists, and he ended up moving on that because of the situation on the ground. That same shift can happen on other issues,” said a current US official.
Proponents in the administration of sanctioning the two ministers point to allegations that Ben Gvir has ordered police not to crack down on rampant settler violence, that he has armed settlers throughout the West Bank and that he has upended the status quo on the flashpoint Temple Mount, among other destabilizing moves.
Smotrich, meanwhile, has used his position as minister in charge of settlement affairs in the Defense Ministry to usher a massive influx in both the construction of settlements and illegal outposts across the West Bank. As finance minister, he has withheld hundreds of millions of shekels from the Palestinian Authority, bringing it to the brink of financial collapse, which could create a vacuum the Biden administration fears would be filled by terror groups.
The administration is currently concerned that Smotrich will not sign a waiver granting indemnity to Israeli banks that carry out transactions with Palestinian ones in what risks crumbling of the Palestinian economy.
With their support for annexing large parts of the West Bank and collapsing the PA, Ben Gvir and Smotrich are seen as major obstacles to the two-state solution, which is why a growing number of Biden aides back crossing the threshold from sanctioning Israeli civilians to Israeli officials, the two sources told The Times of Israel.
If that step isn’t taken, a current US official said one should expect an intensification of the sanctions to possibly include organizations such as Amana and Nahala, which are responsible for building settlements and outposts, and have already been included on lists as potential designees during previous rounds this year.
An Israeli, allegedly from the illegal settlement outpost of Meitarim Farms, films Palestinians in their homes in the West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta August/September 2024 (Courtesy Haqel)
Settlement labeling
However this is only one of the few steps that Biden aides are considering taking during the lame-duck period that are broadly aimed at preserving and advancing prospects for a two-state solution.
Another one is to reverse a lame-duck decision taken by Trump in 2020 requiring goods made in Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank to be labeled as “Made in Israel.” While the move was aimed at presenting the West Bank settlements as an equal part of Israel, it also applied to Palestinian towns in Area C of the West Bank.
That was a move that some Biden aides thought would’ve been taken much earlier in the president’s term, but fell through the cracks, the former senior US official said, acknowledging that it was less likely to be approved if Trump wins, given the likelihood of its reversal.
The concern in the past about labeling settlement products was that opponents would conflate it with a boycott of Israel, but proponents argue that it can be framed as a step that separates the settlements from the rest of the country.
Israelis mark the Sukkot holiday in front of a large Star of David in the West Bank settlement of Sde Boaz, in Gush Etzion, October 11, 2022. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
Reopening the consulate
Biden came into office pledging to reopen the US Consulate in Jerusalem, the de facto mission to the Palestinians that Trump shuttered in 2019.
The move required a degree of approval from the Israeli government, which repeatedly rejected the idea. The administration sufficed with establishing an Office of Palestinian Affairs in 2022, which was still part of the US Embassy to Israel but was allowed to send diplomatic cables directly to Washington without being filtered by the US ambassador to Israel.
The lack of follow-through on Biden’s election promise has been a major sticking point for the PA, which some US officials would still like to remedy if Harris wins in November.
The former senior US official said the White House could dangle one last visit from Biden to Israel to participate in the corner-stone laying ceremony for the yet-to-be-built US embassy compound in exchange for Jerusalem lifting its opposition to reopening the consulate.
A flag of the United States flies outside the then-US consulate building in Jerusalem, on March 4, 2019. (Ariel Schalit/AP)
Leveraging US aid to Israel
One move that has not received as much public attention, but the former senior US official said could prove effective, would be for the US to threaten to change a clause in the Memorandum of Understanding on US security assistance to Israel that allows Jerusalem to spend up to 25 percent of the aid on weapons made in Israel.
Israel is the only country that isn’t required to spend the entirety of assistance it receives from Washington in the US. The former US official said Netanyahu’s aides pushed for this clause to be included in the MoU before it was signed in 2008 because many of the weapon manufacturing plants in Israel are managed by members of Netanyahu’s Likud Party.
While the MoU has already been signed, it is not legally binding, is subject to changes and has already seen minor violations by Israel, the former senior US official said, arguing that the US should threaten to remove the clause in question in order to pressure Netanyahu to take steps that advance a two-state solution.
A ‘realistic’ two-state solution
While the current and former US officials were skeptical that Biden would unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state or allow a resolution to be passed against Israel at the UN Security Council during the lame-duck period, they did think the president could approve a top member of his administration giving a high-level speech laying out Washington’s view on the need for a two-state solution and what a “realistic” proposal could look like.
It could be fashioned by the address former secretary of state John Kerry gave during the lame-duck period of Obama’s second term in December 2016 — a speech that was not received well by Netanyahu, who was still prime minister then.
The current and former senior US officials offered several other ideas of steps that Biden could approve after the presidential election but didn’t want them publicized due to fear that this could harm their chances of being implemented.