JERUSALEM –
With no clear path to get Israeli-Palestinian peace talks back on track, US President Joe Biden offered US money on Friday as a salve while visiting a local hospital.
“Palestinians and Israelis deserve the same measures of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity,” he said while visiting the East Jerusalem Hospital Network, which cares for Palestinians. “And access to health care, when you need it, is essential to living a life of dignity for all of us.”
Although the proposed US$100 million in medical assistance requires approval from the US Congress, Biden is also announcing US$201 million for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, in addition to smaller amounts for other programs. varied.
Israel has also pledged to upgrade wireless networks in the West Bank and Gaza, as part of a broader effort to improve economic conditions.
After leaving the hospital, Biden will meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and visit the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.
His trip to the West Bank is being met with skepticism and bitterness among Palestinians who believe Biden has taken too few steps to rejuvenate the peace talks, especially after President Donald Trump brushed them aside while heavily favoring Israel.
When Biden finished speaking at the hospital, a woman who identified herself as a pediatric nurse at another health center thanked him for the financial help but said “we need more justice, more dignity.”
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 caretaker prime minister, has no mandate to hold peace negotiations, and elections on November 1 could bring to power a right-wing government opposed to Palestinian statehood.
Meanwhile, President Mahmoud 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 this week that while he supports a two-state solution, it won’t happen “any time soon.” The United States also appears to have conceded defeat in its more modest push to reopen a Jerusalem consulate serving Palestinians that was closed when President Donald 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 is headed with Saudi Arabia to attend a summit of Arab leaders, hopes to expand 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 early Friday “the decision to open the Kingdom’s airspace to all airlines that comply with with the requirements of the Authority for overflying”.
It signaled the end of its longstanding ban on Israeli flights over its territory, a gradual step toward normalizing Saudi-Israeli relations that builds on the strong but informal ties the former enemies have developed in recent years. years about their shared concerns. about Iran’s growing influence in the region.
Biden hailed the decision in a statement Friday as an important step in “helping build momentum toward further integration of Israel in the region.”
The Palestinians have hardly been mentioned in the past two days, as Biden has showered Israel with praise, portraying 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 supported an eventual two-state solution to ensure that Israel remains a majority-Jewish state. But Biden is expected to announce little beyond financial assistance, including $201 million for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
Biden has proposed $100 million, subject to approval by the US Congress, for hospitals in East Jerusalem serving Palestinians. Another $15 million is for humanitarian assistance, plus $7.2 million for programs to promote cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians.
His approach, often called “economic peace,” has limitations.
“You can’t buy a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US State Department official. “It doesn’t work, because that’s not what drives this conflict.”
That sentiment was on display in the West Bank on Thursday, where dozens of Palestinians gathered to protest against Biden. More protests were expected on Friday.
“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.”
At this point, 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 settlements, many of which resemble sprawling suburbs, as the main obstacle to peace, because they carve up land on which a Palestinian state would be established. Most of the world considers them illegal.
Military rule in the West Bank has sown widespread desperation, contributing to a recent wave of violence. A 15-year blockade of Gaza, which Israel says is necessary to contain Hamas, has helped fuel four devastating wars. Jerusalem, home to famous holy sites and the emotional heart of the conflict, is as volatile as ever.
Israel has its own grievances, including Palestinian Authority payments to the families of prisoners and slain attackers, which Israel says incentivize violence. The AP defends the payments as a form of social assistance for those it considers to be victims of the conflict.
It is not clear whether the elimination of the “martyrs’ fund” would further the goal of statehood. Israel is dominated by nationalist and religious parties that oppose a Palestinian state and see the West Bank as the biblical and historical heartland of the Jewish people.
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 ahead of Biden’s visit.
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.
Biden is also likely to see banners calling for justice for Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was killed during an Israeli military raid in the West Bank in May. Israel says she may have been hit by Palestinian gunfire, while investigations by The Associated Press and other media outlets back up Palestinian witnesses who say she was shot by Israeli forces.
The United States says she was probably killed by Israeli troops but apparently unintentionally, without saying how it came to those conclusions. That angered many Palestinians, including Abu Akleh’s family, who accused the United States of trying to help Israel evade responsibility for her death.
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Krauss reported from Ottawa. Megerian reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.