History lessons, refusal of reality, attempt to consolidate dikes that are leaking from all sides… All of this was in the speech by the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to his host in Bethlehem, Joe Biden, Friday, July 15. Faced with the American president, who was flying to Saudi Arabia after two days in Israel and a morning in the occupied Palestinian territories, Mr. Abbas once again rejected the normalization of relations between the Jewish state and part of the world. Arabic – which Mr. Biden makes a point of promoting.
On several occasions, the “raïs” recalled the existence of the “Arab peace initiative”: the plan designed in 2002 by the Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah and adopted that same year by the Arab League, which subordinated normalization with Israel to the creation of a viable Palestinian state. This initiative was buried by the diplomatic normalization agreements, signed in 2020, under the sponsorship of Donald Trump, between Israel on the one hand and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco on the other. But the 2002 plan officially remains the norm in Riyadh, allowing Mr. Abbas to urge Salman, the current Saudi ruler, not to forget it.
There was something terribly anachronistic about the meeting of Abu Mazen, the nickname of Mr Abbas, 87, with Joe Biden, 79. It was an opportunity for the American president to recall, more clearly than ever during his mandate, his attachment to a two-state solution on the 1967 borders. (1993), which, for lack of having been sufficiently defended by the great Western capitals, starting with Washington, today seems dead, although never buried.
No way to restart negotiations
Mr. Biden did not in fact mention any avenue to relaunch the peace negotiations. He did not mention East Jerusalem as the “capital” of a future Palestinian state, a key demand of the leaders in Ramallah. The tenant of the White House endorsed the recognition of the holy city as the capital of Israel by his predecessor, Donald Trump. Earlier in the morning, Mr. Biden visited the Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem, where he offered $100 million in aid to the Palestinian hospital network in the holy city – a sum that Congress will have to to validate.
He also promised $201 million to UNRWA, the United Nations agency that assists Palestinian refugees – hated at the time by Donald Trump. He finally announced a plan to deploy 4G in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, where 3G and 2G reign respectively – a promise of progress already made by Israel and Washington in the past and remained a dead letter.
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