JERUSALEM –
US President Joe Biden visited the West Bank on Friday and reaffirmed his continued support for “two states for two peoples” but acknowledged that “the ground is not ripe” to revive stalled talks aimed at achieving a hard-won peace. achieve between Israelis and Palestinians.
His comments came during a joint appearance in Bethlehem with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, where he announced $201 million for a United Nations agency that supports Palestinian refugees.
“The Palestinian people are suffering now,” Biden said. “You can feel it. Your pain and frustration. In the United States, we can feel it.”
Biden said they “deserve a state of their own that is independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous. Two states for two peoples, both with deep and ancient roots in this land, living side by side in peace and security.”
Although that goal “may seem so far away,” he said he would not give up on the peace process.
“Even if the ground is not ripe at this time to restart negotiations, the United States and my administration will not give up on bringing the Palestinians and Israelis, both sides, closer together,” he said.
Abbas, in his own comments, said that “the key to peace” in the region “begins with the end of the Israeli occupation of our land.” He said Israel “cannot continue to act as a state above the law” and said the murderers of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh “must be held accountable.”
Abu Akleh was shot during an Israeli military incursion into the West Bank in May, and US officials say she was likely killed by Israeli troops unintentionally. However, they did not say how they came to that conclusion, and the result angered many Palestinians, including her family, who accuse the United States of trying to help Israel evade responsibility.
Biden said the United States “will continue to insist on a full and transparent account of his death and will continue to defend press freedom around the world.”
He called his death “an enormous loss to the essential work of sharing the story of the Palestinian people with the world.”
Palestinian journalists wore black T-shirts with Abu Akleh’s picture on them and placed a poster of her on an empty chair in the room where the leaders spoke.
Earlier Friday, Biden appeared in east Jerusalem at the Augusta Victoria Hospital, which treats Palestinians, to discuss financial assistance for local health care. She proposed $100 million, which requires approval from the US Congress, plus smaller amounts for other assorted programs.
Israel has also pledged to upgrade wireless networks in the West Bank and Gaza, as part of a broader effort to improve economic conditions.
“Palestinians and Israelis deserve the same measures of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity,” he said at the hospital. “And access to health care, when you need it, is essential to living a life of dignity for all of us.”
After Biden finished speaking, a woman who identified herself as a pediatric nurse at another health care facility thanked him for the financial help but said “we need more justice, more dignity.”
Biden’s trip to the West Bank was met with skepticism and bitterness among Palestinians who believe he has taken too few steps to revive peace talks, especially after President Donald Trump brushed them aside while heavily favoring Israel.
The last serious round of negotiations aimed at creating an independent Palestinian state collapsed more than a decade ago, leaving millions of Palestinians living under Israeli military rule.
Israel’s outgoing government has taken steps to improve economic conditions in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. But Yair Lapid, the interim prime minister, has no mandate to conduct peace negotiations. Elections on November 1 could also bring to power a right-wing government that opposes the Palestinian state.
Meanwhile, Abbas, 86, whose Palestinian Authority administers parts of the occupied West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security, is more representative of the status quo than of Palestinian aspirations.
His Fatah party lost an election and control of Gaza to the Islamic militant group Hamas more than 15 years ago. He called off the first national elections since last year, blaming Israel, as Fatah appeared headed for another crushing defeat. Polls over the past year have consistently found that almost 80% of Palestinians want him to resign.
Biden acknowledged earlier during the trip that a two-state solution won’t happen “any time soon.” The United States also appears to have conceded defeat in its more modest attempt to reopen a Jerusalem consulate serving Palestinians that was closed when Trump recognized the disputed city as Israel’s capital.
Palestinian leaders also fear being further undermined by the Abraham Accords, a diplomatic vehicle for Arab nations to normalize relations with Israel despite continued occupation. Biden, who arrives in Saudi Arabia later Friday to attend a summit of Arab leaders, hopes to expand on that process, which began under Trump.
Hours before Biden became the first American leader to fly directly from Israel to the kingdom, Saudi Arabia’s General Civil Aviation Authority announced that it had opened the kingdom’s airspace to all airlines that meet the requirements of the overflight authority.
It marked the end of his longstanding ban on Israeli flights over his territory, a gradual step toward normalizing relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel that was hailed by Biden.
The Palestinians had barely been mentioned in the past two days when Biden showered Israel with praise, presenting it as a democracy that shares American values. In a press conference with Biden, Lapid evoked the US civil rights movement to portray Israel as a bastion of freedom.
It all reeked of hypocrisy for the Palestinians, who have endured 55 years of military occupation with no end in sight.
“The idea of shared values really turns my stomach,” said Diana Buttu, a Palestinian lawyer and political analyst. “I don’t think Israeli values are something people should strive for.”
Both Biden and Lapid said they support an eventual two-state solution, but their approach, often called “economic peace,” has limitations.
“Mr. Biden is trying to sideline the Palestinian issue,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a veteran Palestinian activist. “If he doesn’t allow the Palestinians to have their rights, then he is helping Israel to kill and kill the last chance for peace.”
The Palestinian goal of an independent state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, seems further away than ever.
Israel is expanding settlements in annexed East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which are now home to some 700,000 Jewish settlers. Palestinians see the sprawling slum-like settlements as the main obstacle to peace because they carve up land on which a Palestinian state would be established. Most of the world considers the settlements to be illegal.
Well-known human rights groups have concluded that Israel’s seemingly permanent control over millions of Palestinians amounts to apartheid. One such group, Israel’s own B’Tselem, hung banners in the West Bank that were visible from the presidential motorcade.
Israel rejects that label as an attack on its very existence, despite the fact that two former Israeli prime ministers warned years ago that their country would be seen that way if it did not reach a two-state agreement with the Palestinians. The United States also rejects the accusations of apartheid.
——
Krauss reported from Ottawa. Megerian reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.