The Biden administration has stated that it plans a “reset” of American attitudes and policies regarding the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and has already taken some steps toward putting the idea into practice. To Alan Baker, these plans are ill-advised:
There can be no genuine and bona-fide reset of the administration’s approach to the Israel-Palestinian peace process . . . if the Palestinian leadership is allowed—and even encouraged—to continue in its efforts to undermine that process by undermining Israel’s legitimacy and that of its leadership, as well as through its cynical manipulation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) with numerous allegations of war crimes. In fact, the Palestinian leadership is openly continuing to poke a finger in the eye of the administration by its continued abuse and manipulation of the ICC by turning it into [an] Israel-bashing tribunal.
To reset the U.S. approach to the Israel-Palestinian peace process without requiring the Palestinian leadership to cease their “pay-for-slay” policy of paying salaries to terrorists and their families is tantamount to closing a blind eye to such payments and ignoring valid U.S. legislation.
To the contrary, it will rather place that process into a mode of acute regression, by . . . encouraging the Palestinians to continue their intransigence, their inflexibility, and their obstruction. . . . One wonders why this new U.S. administration is so intent on coddling the Palestinians, without exacting the appropriate, necessary, and obvious price for such coddling.
Read more on Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs: https://jcpa.org/bidens-israeli-palestinian-reset-is-premature/