Even if he tried to

Biden cannot avoid the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

• Biden spent decades as chair of the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee and learned that the Middle East is rife with disturbing surprises.

  Reuters

• Gaza cease-fire measures are a temporary remedy for the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

  Reuters

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US President Joe Biden is trying to distance himself from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which means the continuation of the US policy of continuous support and favoritism for Israel, and this matter is likely not to change, especially since Biden emphasized “Israel's right to defend itself,” without referring to the right Palestinians equal in security and safety.

Of course, Biden wants to get rid of the current situation in the region, because this is the last issue his administration wants to spend time thinking about, and it is fully aware that no matter what efforts are made, it may not be able to reach anything mentioned, not to mention the political damage that can affect it, but the situation The old present between Israelis and Palestinians has become unstable and may not be saved.

The current crisis differs in an important way from its predecessor, as the two million Palestinians who live inside Israel, who make up 20% of its population, have become involved for the first time in years in the conflict, and no one knows where this will lead, and perhaps the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas movement will not be “We are able to control this crisis, stop it, and release it easily, as they did in the past.

Annoying surprises

Biden spent several decades as chair of the Congressional Foreign Relations Committee, where he became aware that the Middle East in general, and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in particular, is rife with disturbing surprises, yet the White House was really surprised by the outbreak of this latest crisis, and American officials did not know what to do. doing it.

The White House was not alone in that surprise, especially since former President Donald Trump and Netanyahu went far in convincing world leaders that the Palestinians had been brutally defeated and that no list would be established for them, and everyone could ignore their presence.

We will hear a lot about reaching an end to the current violence in the next few weeks, and it is supposed to happen these days, and there will be negotiations on the "relaunch of the peace process" and the "two-state solution", both of which are in a dying state and are likely to remain that way. .

The benefit that can be obtained from the point of view of the United States, in talking about these goals that cannot be achieved in the long run, is that they provide a scene of activity, but they cannot provide any benefit, and it would be much better if the United States tried to achieve more. Of the more limited, but also more realistic, goals that would alleviate the grievances that led to the current explosion.

Mitigating measures

It will include rolling back a few of the anti-Palestinian measures taken by the Trump administration by ending the blockade of Gaza, reaffirming that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, and supporting Palestinian elections, and there are also many similar measures.

But it is unlikely that any of these measures will be implemented, and Biden will spend all his energy in resuming negotiations with Iran, which apparently have undergone some developments, coinciding with the decline in the pace of civil war in Iraq and Syria, with the decline of the political heat in the region.

President Biden will keep in his mind throughout his political life three names of American presidents, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush Jr., who were severely damaged by their interference in the political minefield in the Middle East, and he will want to avoid doing what they did, but he may not be able On it.

Biden wants to get rid of the current situation in the region. This is the last issue his administration wants to spend time thinking about, and is fully aware that no matter what efforts you make, you may not be able to reach anything mentioned, let alone the political damage that could affect it.

• The current crisis differs in an important way from its predecessor, as the two million Palestinians who live inside Israel, who make up 20% of its population, have become involved for the first time in years in the conflict, and no one knows where this will lead.

Patrick Cockburn is a British journalist who has worked in the Middle East

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