Palestinians should expect no more than lip service from Biden

US President Joe Biden is no stranger to the Middle East. This week may mark his first tour of the region as president, but the former vice president and long-serving US senator has been a familiar face here for more than two decades.
He will only be making two stops during his trip. Arriving in Israel and staying for two days, he will meet top Israeli officials including new Prime Minister Yair Lapid, former premier Naftali Bennett and even Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu. He will then take a short drive to occupied Bethlehem, where he will have a brief, largely symbolic talk with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
After that, he will fly to Jeddah, where he will hold talks with King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman before attending an extraordinary summit meeting with the leaders of the GCC, in addition to the president of Egypt, the king of Jordan and the Iraqi prime minister.
Biden will arrive in a turbulent Middle East. Israel is preparing to hold a fifth election in four years, signaling the fragility of its political system and the fierce internal struggle between largely right-leaning parties in a deeply polarized society.
Biden will be careful not to get entangled in the complex Israeli political scene. Instead, he will focus on the special relationship between the US and Israel, especially in the area of military assistance and cooperation.
It would be surprising if he made any public comments while in Israel on the need to halt the building of illegal Israeli settlements or attempts to change the status quo at Al-Aqsa. It would be even more surprising if he called on Israel to resume peace talks with the Palestinians.
With midterm congressional elections looming back home, Biden will make sure that his support of Israel appears to be ironclad.
He will, however, praise the Abraham Accords and support ongoing efforts to expand the emerging coalition.
On Iran, where his administration and Israel differ on some key points, Biden may go as far as sending a warning to Tehran that time is running out to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, opening the way for other options. He will call on the Lebanese government to rein in Hezbollah and stop its provocations against Israel.
In short, Biden will say what Israeli officials would like to hear; focusing on cooperation, the special relationship, normalization, Iran and Hezbollah, but not the occupation of Palestinian territories.
In contrast, Biden is expected to visit the largest Palestinian hospital in East Jerusalem and announce a $100 million aid package to support the Palestinian health system in the Arab city. In September 2018, the Trump administration cut $25 million for the hospitals in East Jerusalem. Israeli media reported that the US has asked Gulf allies to make similar gestures.

Biden will focus on cooperation, the special relationship, normalization, Iran and Hezbollah, but not the occupation of Palestinian territories

Osama Al-Sharif

Biden will then head to Bethlehem, where he will meet Abbas and where he will listen more than make public statements. Abbas will provide a list of Palestinian demands, which will include the reopening of the PLO’s office in Washington and a date for the opening of a US consulate in East Jerusalem — a promise that has so far remained unfulfilled.
The best that Abbas can expect from Biden is a public commitment to back the two-state solution. But in reality, the US will do nothing at this stage to facilitate the resumption of the suspended talks.
Interestingly, Lapid spoke with Abbas over the weekend in advance of Biden’s visit, a day after Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz met with the PA president in Ramallah, the third such meeting between the two men in less than a year.
According to Gantz’s office, the meeting was held to conduct civil and security coordination ahead of Biden’s visit and to discuss security and civil challenges in the region. The meeting was held in “a good spirit and in a positive atmosphere,” it said.
It is ironic but not surprising that, when the US and its Western allies are sanctioning Russia for breaking international law and annexing Ukrainian territory, there is calculated and often timid reaction toward Israel’s occupation and its piecemeal annexation of Palestinian territory.
One such irony, as revealed by an Arab-Israeli nongovernmental organization this week, is that the US is planning to build a huge diplomatic complex as part of its embassy in Jerusalem on privately owned Palestinian land. The plot, which is owned by Palestinian families who were evicted in 1948 — some of whom now have US citizenship — was confiscated by Israel in 1950.
While Abbas may see Biden’s visit as offering a much-needed boost to his declining popularity among Palestinians, not much is expected to change on the ground. Biden’s aides will make sure that he does not go off script on illegal settlements, radical Jewish extremism, the May killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh or Israel’s almost daily provocations at Al-Aqsa. As usual, the Palestinians will get lip service, at best.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman.Twitter: @plato010