What Biden Should Do About Israel And Palestine
His priority should be undoing the mess created by the Trump administration.
Biden’s challenge.
Photographer: Ahmad Hasaballah/SOPA Images/LightRocket
One of the most urgent foreign policy tasks facing Joe Biden is repairing the severe damage President Donald Trump has inflicted on U.S. policy towards Israel, and especially the Palestinians. Despite the growing impression, in the salons of Washington as much as the palaces of the Middle East, that the Palestinian issue has become moot, that conflict has demonstrated a persistent ability to suddenly reignite. Resolving it remains crucial to security and stability in the Middle East.
Since the end of the Cold War, there had been a bipartisan American consensus in favor of peace based on a negotiated two-state solution. Trump and several key aides, especially his son-in-law Jared Kushner, spent the past four years trying to destroy that consensus by supporting Israeli annexation of occupied territory in the West Bank, effectively eliminating the prospects for a meaningful Palestinian state.