(OPINION) – Michael Snyder – For the past four years, the Palestinians have been deeply frustrated with the White House. The U.S. embassy in Israel was moved to Jerusalem, the Palestinian mission in Washington D.C. was shut down, and financial aid to the Palestinians was reduced.
Last January, President Trump introduced his plan for a two-state solution, but it was immediately rejected by the Palestinians. Everyone knows that the Palestinians absolutely hate Trump and they were never going to agree to any deal that involved him. So that meant that as long as Trump was in the White House, it was extremely unlikely that we would see a Palestinian state.
But now, it appears that everything could change. When Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election by the U.S. media, Palestinians greatly rejoiced. They are absolutely thrilled that Trump could soon be gone, and they are desperately hoping that U.S. foreign policy under a Biden administration will look very much like it did during the eight years of the Obama administration.
Of course, Barack Obama was a tireless promoter of a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines, and many in the Middle East are anticipating that there could be a major push to finally make that a reality during a Biden presidency. The following comes from a Jerusalem Post article entitled “A Biden presidency resurrects ’67 lines, Palestinian state – analysis”…
US President-elect Joe Biden’s presidency will erase many of the gains the Israeli Right made over the last four years with regard to Israeli sovereignty over Area C of the West Bank – and reintroduces the concept of a two-state solution to the Israeli Palestinian conflict at the pre-1967 lines.
The Trump administration had also been pushing a two-state solution, but the map that Trump administration officials were envisioning was vastly different from the one that the Palestinians have been envisioning. And even if they were close to being on the same page, Palestinian officials were simply not in the mood to do any deal with Trump because of a lot of the other moves that he decided to make…
He cut off US aid to the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank, formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and moved the US embassy there from Tel Aviv. Trump refused to condemn settlement building and expansion as illegal – in defiance of international law. He also withdrew funding to the UN refugee agency, which millions of Palestinians depend on for education, food, and livelihoods. Trump also brokered “normalization” deals with three Arab countries who recognized Israel without so much as demanding Palestinian gains in return, leaving the Palestinian leadership increasingly isolated. READ MORE
