Jacob Olidort, Ph.D.
June 17, 2022
Biden’s Mideast peace problem? He lives in the past
U.S. President Joe Biden’s first visit to the Middle East next month will include stops in Israel and the West Bank. It is notable that in the White House press statement listing the issues Biden plans to raise with his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts, the word “peace” does not appear.
This is not because Biden is uninterested in advancing peace between Israelis and Palestinians, as some media outlets have implied.
On the contrary, Biden has taken a series of steps to elevate the Palestinian leadership over the last 17 months, including restoring the U.S. aid that former President Donald Trump halted. On June 9, just last week, the Biden administration opened a new “Office of Palestinian Affairs” in Jerusalem, three years after the Trump administration closed the Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem.
The opening of the office is not only a reversal of Trump administration policy but also an explicit rejection of the Israeli government’s opposition to the current administration’s earlier plan to reopen the Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem.
It is an ironic coincidence that, on the same day that the Biden administration announced its decision to open the Office of Palestinian Affairs, two Palestinians were indicted for their role in a deadly ax attack in the town of Elad in which they killed three Israelis and wounded several others.