While the Biden administration claims to oppose “unilateral steps that make a two-state solution harder to achieve,” Israel has already crossed the “red line” of annexation.
Speaking from Jerusalem following a meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reiterated calls for a two-state solution and promoting the normalization of relations with Israel across the Middle East. Palestinians say the visit shows the United States remains biased towards Israel.
“When the U.S. draws an equivalence between the butcher and the butchered, then it is necessarily on the side of the butcher,” Ubai Aboudi, Executive Director at Bisan Center for Research and Development, tells Mondoweiss.
The Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli military outfit housed at Tel Aviv University, just delivered its strategic assessment report, and the main takeaway is that Israel’s “special relationship” with the US is in danger.
The change is attributed to a generational shift in American politics due to “the influence that the progressive young generation has had in denying the legitimacy of Israel and Zionism, which they see as expressions of white-colonialist supremacy.”
The Biden administration has pressed forward with the military aspects of the Abraham Accords’ vision, letting it be known at the end of 2022 that Israel, as part of its new position in CENTCOM, had been elevated to “full military partner” in terms of strategizing and planning with the United States.
The move sets a dangerous precedent, which if it results in an official alliance, runs the risk of an American commitment to Israel’s defense that could easily drag the U.S. into more fighting in the Middle East, even if that’s not Washington’s intention. And it would mean that commitment happens without any kind of public debate.
Palestinians with American citizenship are calling for an investigation of discriminatory treatment by the State Department, as well as violations of US laws in service of the Israeli occupation.
Protests greeted US President Joe Biden as his motorcade passed along the main road of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank on Friday. Palestinians chanted “America is a terrorist state,” and held signs saying “Zionists are not welcome,” along with photos of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
New evidence reveals that US plans to build an embassy in Jerusalem would place the diplomatic compound on privately-owned Palestinian land that was confiscated from its owners by Israel, following the Nakba and the establishment of the state in 1948.
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.
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.