WHEN Joe Biden makes his first visit as President of the United States to the Middle East this month, the Palestinians that he will meet seem less likely than any other party to see short- or long-term benefits from his brief presence there. He has not won their hearts and minds.
Palestinians have not forgotten that President Biden made no reference to the Israel-Palestine issue when he set out his foreign-policy objectives shortly after his inauguration. Since then, his focus has rarely been on the core crisis in the region.
The White House says that the President, while in Israel and the West Bank, will express “strong support for a two-state solution with equal measures of security, freedom, and opportunity for the Palestinian people”. The pledge has failed to raise Palestinian hopes.
“We expect little from the meeting with Biden,” the Bethlehem-born political analyst Daoud Kuttab says. “Palestinians would love it if his words had teeth behind them, and violating them would have consequences. But no one believes this will happen.” Of particular importance from the Palestinian perspective, he says, are “the ways to genuinely advance the two-state solution, stop illegal settlements, safeguard lives, and protect the rights of Christians in Jerusalem”.
After talks in Israel (where he will emphasise the United States’ “iron-clad commitment to the country’s security and prosperity”) and the West Bank, President Biden will attend a summit in Saudi Arabia of the six Arab Gulf states, plus Egypt, Iraq, and Jordan. Here, he will seek to build a coalition of Middle Eastern countries, including Israel, to counter regional threats from Iran.
More important, from the perspective of his own popularity in the US, he hopes that the Saudis will agree to raise oil production to help to bring down the cost of petrol for American motorists. To encourage Saudi co-operation, he will promise stronger US military defence guarantees, and, after months of dithering, quietly put to one side his refusal to meet the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, on account of the latter’s alleged connection with the murder in Turkey of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi (Comment, 26 October 2018).
For Palestinians, Israel’s inclusion in a coalition with nine Arab states represents further regional marginalisation. International diplomatic intervention seems to have run out of steam, leaving Palestinians feeling increasingly isolated and cynical. They have learned to be cautious even when American presidents promise results.
Barack Obama, in 2009, called the Palestinians’ situation “intolerable”, and said that his administration would back their demand for “a state of their own”. Donald Trump proposed the bizarrely unrealistic creation of a Palestinian state somehow wedged in around the border fences of dominant Jewish settlements in the West Bank. If previous presidential promises rang hollow, President Biden has yet to make one.
Aside from the trend of Arab states’ formally recognising Israel, Israeli domestic politics could further spike Palestinian interests. Israel remains in political crisis, with the strong possibility of Benjamin Netanyahu’s returning as Prime Minister: a trigger for further settlement expansion and diplomatic paralysis.
At the same time, the US Republican Party, looking ahead to the 2024 elections, continues to rally around Mr Trump’s policies, if not necessarily the man himself. The Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, is referred to as a possible contender to carry forward the Trump flag. In contrast to what The New Yorker calls Mr Trump’s “lazy Barnumesque persona”, Mr DeSantis has an intense work ethic and “a granular understanding of policy”.
But, in the event of a Republican victory, only a rash punter would bet on the party’s “America First” policy sheet’s including a commitment to searching for an honourable and enduring solution to the Israel-Palestine crisis.