Washington during the Obama years advocated the two-state solution, considered Israel’s borders to be the 1948 armistice boundaries, regarded settlement activity in the West Bank as illegal, and was equivocal about Jerusalem, refusing to implement the law requiring the US to site its embassy there. There is little doubt that Abbas and the PA leadership will attempt to build on that old relationship, and are hoping that Biden will pick up where he left off, thus blocking any attempt to implement Donald Trump’s “Deal of the Century”.
During his time as US
vice-president, Biden made countless trips to Israel and the Palestinian
Authority, and was well aware that Abbas’s term as PA president, due to expire
in January 2009, was being extended time and again. Abbas is doubtless hoping that his attempt to
hold elections for the Palestinian legislature and presidency later this year
will win brownie points with the new US president.
Coming into office,
Barak Obama was a devout believer in the gospel of the time ‒ that the key
cause of disharmony in the Middle East was the Israel-Palestinian dispute. Solve that, the doctrine maintained, and
peace would follow as the night the day.
Determined to build bridges with the Muslim world Obama, within days of
taking office, appointed George Mitchell his “special envoy to the Middle
East”, and charged him explicitly to seek a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. Step one, in accordance with the creed of the
time, was obviously to broker peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian
Authority.
Mitchell, negotiating
very skilfully with all the parties concerned, obtained the Arab League’s
blessing to open negotiations, and persuaded Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin
Netanyahu, to obtain the Knesset’s agreement to a 10-month freeze on all
construction in the West Bank. By early
March 2010 a new peace initiative seemed a done deal. On March 10, 2010
vice-president Joe Biden flew to the Middle East to inaugurate the first phase.
Then everything went
wrong. Virtually as Biden emerged from
the plane, Israel’s Interior Minister, Eli Yishai, leader of the Shas party,
authorized final approval of a scheme to construct 1600 new housing units in what
Washington considered an illegal settlement.
The Obama administration was outraged.
The move was seen as an insult not only to the vice-president, but to
the US itself.
It was all eventually smoothed over, but to no effect. The 2010 peace initiative eventually ran into the ground. Abbas delayed coming to the table for direct talks month after month, until the 10-month building freeze drew to a close. He then demanded an extension of the freeze as the price of continuing to talk - but achieving Knesset approval to an extension was beyond even the political skills of Netanyahu.
It took three years before the Obama White
House was able to renew its attempt to get the parties round the negotiating
table. Biden was pretty fully involved
in that effort as well.
This time the task was
placed in the hands of US Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry was notably vigorous and enthusiastic
in tackling his formidable task. On the
last day of April 2013, Kerry and Joe Biden hosted an Arab League delegation to
obtain cover for the new effort. History records that this initiative, like its
predecessor, quickly ran into the sands.
It lasted barely the optimistic nine months that the negotiating teams
had allowed.
Abbas, apparently appreciating
that there can be no simple return to the Obama era, is signalling a change of direction. He can see that the PA’s violent reaction to
the Abraham Accords and Arab-Israel normalization produced precisely no effect
and, changing tack, has embarked on an attempt to mend relations with Arab
nations and win the goodwill of the Biden administration.
On November 17, 2020 the
PA suddenly announced that it was restoring suspended relations with Israel and
resuming security coordination on the West Bank. It also resumed accepting the tax
revenues which the Israeli government collects on its behalf.
Two days later, the PA
returned its ambassadors to the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain (they had been
recalled in protest at the normalization with Israel). Then, when first Sudan and later Morocco
subscribed to the Abraham Accords, the PA offered no reaction at all. Abbas doubtless calculates that the normalization
process seems likely to continue whether the Palestinians like it or not, and if
the PA were to withdraw its ambassadors from every Arab state that signs up, it
would risk its isolation deepening even further.
Meanwhile, ahead of the
transition to a new US administration, Jordan, Egypt and the PA are apparently preparing
the ground for a common stand on resolving the Palestine-Israel issue. A
trilateral meeting in Cairo on December 19 involving the foreign ministers of
the three countries resulted in a joint statement calling for the resumption of
peace negotiations.
Can
Abbas, backed by Jordan and Egypt, forge an effective working relationship with
the new US president? These early gestures have not gone unnoticed in Washington. On January 26 US envoy Richard Mills told the UN Security Council that the Biden administration will be "renewing US relations with the Palestinian leadership." On January 27, a PA official is reported as "deeply satisfied" with the announcement.
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