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DESPITE POSSIBILITY OF CEASEFIRE, U.S. IMPERIAL AMBITIONS MAY DOOM
PALESTINE  
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Edward Hunt
June 12, 2024
Foreign Policy in Focus
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_ The Biden administration’s efforts to normalize relations between
Israel and Saudi Arabia may make it impossible for Palestinians to
achieve a viable state. _

, AP

 

While Israel continues its military siege of Gaza, the United States
is trying to exploit the situation with the goal of strengthening U.S.
power in the Middle East.

Rather than seeking a long-term solution to the Israel-Palestine
conflict, the United States is prioritizing its longstanding goal of
normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. With such a
deal, which would require calm in Gaza to bring Saudi Arabia on board,
the United States would further marginalize the Palestinians while
more tightly integrating Israel into its regional network of alliances
and partnerships.

“I think we’re at a point where the necessary agreements between
the United States and Saudi Arabia are very well within reach,”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told
[[link removed]] Congress
last month.

THE U.S. APPROACH

For decades, the United States has dominated the Middle East. A key to
U.S. power has been the U.S.-led network of alliances and partnerships
that includes Israel and the Arab states. It enables the United States
to station tens of thousands of soldiers across the Middle East and
quickly surge additional forces into the area.

“It’s a vast strategic advantage,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd
Austin explained
[[link removed]] in
2021, referring to the U.S.-led network. “It is unmatched. It is
unparalleled. And it is unrivaled.”

Although U.S. officials have boasted of their power, their approach
has been a major source of instability, especially as it concerns
relations between Israel and the Arab states. Since the founding of
Israel in 1948 and the Nakba for the Palestinians, many Arab states
have refused to recognize Israel. Israel and the Arab states have
fought several wars.

The international community has favored
[[link removed]] a
two-state solution, which would create a state of Palestine alongside
the state of Israel, but the United States has effectively opposed
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even while rhetorically supporting it. Focused on maintaining its
regional network, the United States has pursued bilateral deals with
Arab states that are willing to establish peaceful relations with
Israel. By the end of the twentieth century, the United States had
played a central role in brokering deals with Egypt and Jordan, both
of which now receive extensive economic and military assistance.

Most Arab states rejected such deals, insisting that there must first
be a resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but some of them
changed their positions during the Trump administration. Under
the Abraham Accords
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several additional Arab states vowed to normalize relations with
Israel. They entered into agreements with Israel, enticed by special
deals with the United States.

U.S. officials have been nearly unanimous in hailing the Abraham
Accords as a great achievement, but critics have pointed out that the
accords exclude the Palestinians. In Foreign Policy in Focus, John
Feffer has warned that it would be unwise to wish away the
Palestinians, especially if there is genuine interest in ending the
“fratricide
[[link removed]]” that has
been so destructive to Israelis and Palestinians.

Officials in Washington are aware of the criticisms. “It has been
fashionable in some foreign policy circles to believe… that you
could somehow achieve peace and stability and security by jumping over
the Palestinian issue,” Senator Chris Van Hollen
(D-MD) acknowledged
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month.

Few officials have taken such concerns seriously, however. Before
Hamas carried out its October 7 terrorist attack against Israel, the
Biden administration had been trying
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expand the accords by including Saudi Arabia.

President Biden had once promised to make Saudi Arabia into
a pariah 
[[link removed]]over
its killing of a Washington Post columnist, but he wanted a deal even
more, knowing that Saudi Arabia had dropped its longstanding
insistence upon the establishment of a Palestinian state as a
condition for normalization with Israel. Saudi leaders, it
was reported
[[link removed]],
sought a deal that would merely keep open the possibility of a
Palestinian state.

“We’ve been working—this goes back well before October
7—working with Saudi Arabia and with Israel to pursue normalization
between the two countries,” Blinken acknowledged
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May. “This would be a game changer.”

One of the most striking things about U.S. policy is that the Biden
administration has not changed its approach since October 7. Not only
has it continued its one-sided support of Israel, but it has moved
forward with its plans to bring Saudi Arabia into the accords, even
while indicating that the accords may have led to the current crisis.

“I’m convinced one of the reasons Hamas attacked when they
did—and I have no proof of this; just my instinct tells me—is
because of the progress we were making towards regional integration
for Israel and regional integration overall,” President Biden said
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October 25, just weeks after the attack. “And we can’t leave that
work behind.”

THE PURPOSE OF U.S. PLANS

As the Biden administration has chased its imperial ambitions,
officials have insisted that relations between Israel and Palestine
must change. Without a new arrangement, they say, the cycle of
violence will continue. There will be what Blinken called
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cycles of violence, destruction, death, and insecurity.”

At a congressional hearing in May, State Department official Barbara
Leaf called the status quo “terrible,” especially for the
Palestinians. They live “in a state of everything ranging from
unhappiness to frustration to rage to despair to militancy,”
Leaf said
[[link removed]].
“It’s a terrible recipe for militancy, for radicalization.”

In fact, the Biden administration has insisted that it supports a
two-state solution. Its plans for normalization between Israel and
Saudi Arabia, administration officials say, will eventually lead to
the creation of a Palestinian state. They are even endorsing
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for a ceasefire in Gaza, a move that follows their acknowledgment that
Saudi Arabia now requires
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period of calm and a pathway to a Palestinian state to enter into a
deal.

Still, the Biden administration has made it clear that it opposes
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creation of a viable Palestinian state. As it has blocked
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at the United Nations (UN) to establish a Palestinian state, it has
worked to impose constraints on Palestine.

A major priority of the Biden administration is to limit Palestine’s
security. Administration officials insist that any future Palestinian
state must be demilitarized.

“There are a number of types of two-state solutions,” President
Biden claimed
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this year. “There’s a number of countries that are members of the
UN that… don’t have their own militaries. Number of states that
have limitations… And so I think there’s ways in which this could
work.”

The Biden administration is also requiring Israel to have a say in the
creation of a Palestinian state. It demands that the Palestinians
negotiate with the Israelis, despite the fact that the Israeli
government
[[link removed]] and
the Israeli public
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a two-state solution.

When Congress questioned Blinken last month about the
administration’s plans for normalization between Israel and Saudi
Arabia, Blinken made note of another condition, which is that any deal
would not result in the immediate establishment of a Palestinian
state. In fact, Blinken indicated that the U.S. vision of a longer
pathway to a Palestinian state is not intended to fulfill the
aspirations of the Palestinian people.

“The whole point of normalization but also the whole point of the
establishment of a Palestinian state is to make sure that Israel’s
security is better ensured,” Blinken said
[[link removed]].

Indeed, the Biden administration remains focused on the goal of
integrating Israel into the U.S.-led network of alliances and
partnerships in the Middle East, just as it had been trying to do
before October 7. Rather than trying to achieve a two-state solution
that could bring an end to what one U.S. representative recently
called “75 years of misery [[link removed]],”
the administration is working to take advantage of the current crisis
for the purpose of strengthening U.S. dominance, regardless of the
consequences for the Palestinians.

“Despite the fact that we say those words”—two-state
solution—“we have never addressed our policy to use our influence
to make it happen,” Senator Van Hollen acknowledged
[[link removed]].

_Edward Hunt writes about war and empire. He has a PhD in American
Studies from the College of William & Mary._

_Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) is a “Think Tank Without Walls”
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* Israel
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* Palestine
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* two state solution
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* Saudi Arabia
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* United States
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* imperialism
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