[Salon] PRESIDENT BIDEN IS NOT, SADLY, FOLLOWING HIS OWN PRINCIPLES IN THE MIDDLE EAST -

PRESIDENT BIDEN IS NOT, SADLY, FOLLOWING HIS OWN PRINCIPLES IN THE MIDDLE EAST BY ALLAN C. BROWNFELD ————————————————————————————————————————- 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. ## ———————— 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). --