Saudi normalization with Israel could be used to press for Palestinian rights, but the Biden Administration will likely squander it for short-term political gain that further entrenches Israeli apartheid and endangers the region.
The Chinese-brokered deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia to restore relations has the potential to shake up regional and global politics for the Palestinians’ benefit.
Mondoweiss staff debrief and analyze Joe Biden’s whirlwind trip to Palestine.
By focusing on Joe Biden’s personal relations with the murderous Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the American media is missing the much larger story. The U.S., with Israel’s encouragement, could be forming a dangerous anti-Iran military alliance along with the Saudis. Such a Washington/Tel Aviv/Riyadh agreement, masquerading as a “regional security” deal, raises the danger of war and a regional nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
From July 13 to 16, President Joe Biden will visit the governments of Israel and Saudi Arabia, deepening his complicity in their human rights abuses. As Black and Palestinian organizers in the U.S. who visited Palestine last week, we see President Biden’s widely criticized trip for what it is: a war crimes tour. If Biden cares about human rights at all, he should #CancelTheTrip—as thousands of grassroots activists have demanded—and stop funding the weapons behind their war crimes.
A new poll shows that young Democrats want the U.S. to lean toward Palestine not Israel by nearly three-to-one. Yet the family of Shireen Abu Akleh, a Palestinian American journalist killed by Israel, wrote to Biden today that the “United States has been skulking toward the erasure of any wrongdoing by Israeli forces…. It is as if you expect the world and us to now just move on…”
The Biden administration’s effort to sweep Shireen Abu Akleh’s killing under the rug shows its keenness to extend Trump’s “Abraham Accords” in the Mideast. Those deals make war with Iran more likely, and promote Israeli arm sales and impunity for human rights violations. And as for the Palestinians, they will be completely buried by the Gulf Arab leadership in the rush to please Washington.
Joe Biden once vowed to make Saudi Arabia a “pariah,” but now he is looking to rebuild relations and many expect normalization with Israel to be on the agenda.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken continues to claim the facts “have not been established” in the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.
The Sierra Club Folds Immediately The Sierra Club planned a few educational trips to Israel…