So when Biden took the White House, Palestinian rights advocates and the Arab-American voters who supported him did not have high expectations for a change in the US attitude toward Israel under his leadership. But amid pledges from the Biden campaign and an early presidency to pursue a foreign policy focused on human rights, many hoped the president would reverse at least some of his predecessor Donald Trump’s moves that had further aligned the US with Israel . But rights advocates say the Democratic president has so far failed to deliver on his moderate promises to the Palestinians, as the current US position remains closer to what it was under Trump than it was under Barack Obama . As Biden heads to Israel for the first time as president, Al Jazeera examines which Trump policies Biden changed and which he kept in place:
US Embassy in Jerusalem
Of all Trump’s pro-Israel policy changes, moving the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv has been perhaps the most consistent. The 2018 move provided a practical US endorsement of Israel’s claims to the entire holy city as its capital. Israel had illegally annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 after occupying it in 1967. While Palestinians expressed outrage at the move and the United Nations overwhelmingly declared it “null and void,” the decision was cheered by politicians from both major parties in Washington. With a muted Arab response, Trump declared Jerusalem “off the table” before relocating the embassy. For Biden, returning the embassy to Jerusalem was never a serious consideration. Under his administration, the US has treated Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, while using ambiguous language to describe how it views East Jerusalem. For example, the US State Department’s annual human rights report includes East Jerusalem in the section on Israel. But it adds a caveat: “The language in this report is not intended to convey a position on any final status issues to be negotiated between the parties to the conflict, including the specific limits of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem or the borders between Israel and any future Palestinian state”.
Jerusalem Consulate for the Palestinians
In 2019, Trump closed a consulate for Palestinian affairs in Jerusalem, folding its functions into the Israeli embassy in the holy city. The move severed ties with the Palestinians and signaled the US rejection of its claims to Jerusalem. As a candidate, Biden promised to reopen the consulate, but more than a year and a half into his administration, the move has not materialized. While US officials say they remain committed to restoring the diplomatic post, Biden and his top aides are reluctant to publicly clash with Israel, which opposes reopening the consulate. “As President, Biden will take immediate action to restore economic and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in accordance with US law, including aid to refugees, work to address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, open reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem and reopen the PLO mission in Washington,” the Biden campaign said in a platform for Arab-American voters in 2020. The Palestine Liberation Organization’s mission in Washington — which Trump closed in 2018 — has not reopened even under Biden, amid bipartisan domestic pressure against the move.
Settlements
As a candidate, Biden pledged to oppose annexation and settlement expansion. And unlike Trump, who has never publicly opposed Israel’s actions, the Biden administration has at times verbally criticized the approval of new settlements in the occupied West Bank. However, such muted criticism often comes in vague statements that draw parallels between Israeli and Palestinian actions and state that the US rejects escalation by both sides. In a rare instance last October, US State Department spokesman Ned Price was blunt in his criticism of Israel after it announced a major settlement expansion plan. “We are strongly opposed to settlement expansion, which is completely inconsistent with efforts to de-escalate and ensure calm,” Price said at the time. But that direct language quickly faded. Asked last week if the US had pressured Israel to stop a settlement plan that would separate Palestinian communities in the West Bank from East Jerusalem, Price said: “We have spoken consistently to both sides to encourage them not to take steps that they would exacerbate tensions in that – in the event of doing so it would put a two-state solution more out of reach.” Maya Berry, executive director of the Arab American Institute (AAI), a Washington-based think tank, told Al Jazeera last week that the administration continues to set exceptions to justify Israeli abuses against Palestinians. “It was a continuation of a politicized approach,” he said of Biden’s policies on the conflict. “Whether it’s the Biden administration or specific members of Congress, they’re making an exception for Israel. No other country would be allowed to do what Israel is doing without the political repercussions it would have to face on the world stage. And the main patron in this regard is the United States.” The Biden administration has voiced its opposition to Israeli settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank – mostly through vague statements [File: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP]
Aid to Israel
Despite growing calls to limit or limit US aid to Israel, Biden has actually increased Washington’s aid to its main ally in the region since the Obama-Trump era. Israel receives $3.8 billion in US aid annually and was handed an additional $1 billion this year to “replenish its Iron Dome missile defense system” after the Gaza war in May 2021. In a Washington Post column published last week, Biden boasted that he had passed “the largest aid package for Israel” in history.
Aid to the Palestinians
While Trump effectively ended all US aid to the Palestinians, completely cutting off funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Biden revived some aid. Since taking office in 2021, Biden says his administration has restored $500 million in aid to the Palestinians, including funds for UNRWA, which received about $350 million a year under Obama.
Normalization
The Biden administration is fully committed to the normalization push between Israel and Arab countries launched under Trump, known as the Abraham Accords. The State Department says that Arab-Israeli normalization does not satisfy the need for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. But analysts say Biden has championed the same Trump-era normalization that overlooks the Palestinians. In fact, before his trip to the Middle East, Biden repeatedly cited normalization as the reason behind his visit. “Part of the purpose [for] the trip to the Middle East is to deepen Israel’s integration in the region, which I believe we will be able to do, and which is good for peace and for Israel’s security. And that’s why Israel’s leaders were so strongly in favor of my going to Saudi Arabia,” Biden said late last month.
Golan Heights
When Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over Syria’s occupied Golan Heights, many international law experts warned that the move would undermine the ban on the acquisition of land by force. Although Biden defends the concept of territorial integrity in Ukraine, his administration has maintained the status of the Golan Heights as belonging to Israel. While US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had previously used ambiguous language to describe Syrian territory, no change in US policy on the issue has ever been announced since Biden took office. “US policy on the Golan has not changed and reports to the contrary are false,” the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs tweeted last year.
Ties with Palestinians
While Trump had completely avoided the Palestinians in his policies on the region, the Biden administration is trying to restore US relations with the Palestinian leadership. There have been several calls between senior US and Palestinian officials, including Biden and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Last month, the US administration announced that the Palestinian affairs unit of the US embassy in Jerusalem would begin reporting directly to the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs at the US State Department “on substantive matters”. With the diplomatic upgrade, the Palestinian Affairs Unit (PAU) was renamed the US Office of Palestinian Affairs (OPA). But experts dismissed the move as largely cosmetic, stressing that it is not an adequate substitute for pushing for an actual consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem. “Under the current circumstances, I’m very comfortable telling you that this is simply a public relations effort to try to assuage frustration on the Palestinian side, particularly in light of the president’s upcoming visit to the region,” said Khalil Jahshan, an official director of the Washington Arab Center, told Al Jazeera at the time. However, the government has credited itself with what it presents as a restoration of relations with the Palestinian Authority. “We have worked with Israel, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan to keep the peace without allowing terrorists to rearm. We also rebuilt US ties with the Palestinians,” Biden wrote in the Washington Post. US President Joe Biden has been a staunch supporter of Israel throughout his 49-year career in Washington [File: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
International organizations
Biden has re-engaged with many UN agencies and international organizations that Trump…
