Imagine a soccer match, in the middle of the match, a goalkeeper of one of their teams decides to go for coffee, with a wink and a nod to the opposing team ... that's how President Donald Trump's approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been for the past four years.

The Trump administration left the goal open for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to score more goals at the expense of the Palestinian side, without the slightest resistance and with great complicity from America.

With this introduction, journalist Mortada Hussein, the American correspondent for the Intercept website for national security and foreign policy, began an article on the site entitled "Trump has destroyed the hope for Israeli-Palestinian peace ... Biden will not be able to rebuild it" highlights the damage caused by the Trump administration With the chances of reaching a just peace that satisfies the two parties to the conflict, and foresees the future of the peace process under the era of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.

Trump seeks to persuade Netanyahu to delay annexation plan and hit Iranian targets instead (European)

New reality

The article expects that the foreign policy approach of the United States with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Biden era will return to what it was during the era of former President Barack Obama, returning to focus on the two-state solution and continuing the illusion of playing the role of trusted mediator, even if Israel is practically its preferred party.

He pointed out that there are a number of obstacles in this path, given the feeling of former peace mediators in the Obama administration, frustration because of Israel's actions regarding two previous peace initiatives with the Palestinian side that were doomed to failure, as well as the Iranian nuclear agreement, but Biden nevertheless was and will likely remain a champion. Traditionally a supporter of Israel in Washington.

And none of what happened in the past may be important, the writer says, as the playing field in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has radically changed from what Obama's veterans left in 2017, due to Trump's move to leave the Palestinian goal open to the Israelis.

In this case, the radical change of the facts on the ground will lead to the inevitable conclusion that any peace efforts will be just another big nail in the coffin of the two-state solution, and it is unlikely that Biden or any other president of the United States will be able to change this outcome.

Trump dropped the mediator's mask

The writer said that Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner have helped Israel, over the past four years, to achieve many diplomatic and strategic gains without bothering to make any concessions to the Palestinian side.

Trump abruptly dropped a set of objections that the various US administrations of the Democratic and Republican parties have always adhered to for decades, including the transfer of the US embassy to Jerusalem, the annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights to Israel, the intensification of illegal settlement building, as well as the strangulation of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, and the demolition of record numbers From homes in the West Bank, and the threat of human rights organizations that criticize Israel and accuse it of anti-Semitism, as well as extracting public recognition of Israel from several Arab countries.

However, the aforementioned events represent only a few of the startling changes that have occurred during the Trump era regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the author.

Diana Bhutto - a political analyst based in Ramallah, the former legal advisor to the Palestinian team during the Oslo Accords - says that Trump has made clear once that the United States is totally supportive of Israel, and he has removed the mask of the "honest" mediator, and emphasized that America's role in any negotiations is action. As a lawyer for Israel, she added that the legacy that Trump wanted to leave is the fulfillment of everything on Israel's wish-list.

The bells will not be silenced

The article pointed out that political analysts are ruling out the possibility that the Biden administration will move in the opposite direction to Trump's approach in order to achieve some parity in the negotiations in favor of the Palestinian side, as it is unlikely that any radical change will occur in the new balance of power - which was established by Kushner, Netanyahu and a number of influential people in the American administration. - In the near future.

Yusef Munir, executive director of the American Campaign for Palestinian Rights, believes that “there are some bells that the Trump administration has rang regarding this issue that Biden will not be able to ignore or silence. The Biden administration will accept matters such as recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, annexation of the Golan Heights and support for normalization, as a reality. New. "

Munir said that there are priorities that will be at the top of Biden's agenda, including the state of economic recession in the United States, dealing with the outbreak of the Corona epidemic, in addition to a set of other urgent issues that the Trump administration has created at the international level, which require urgent attention of the new administration.