Joe Biden that he would reopen the US Consulate in east Jerusalem 'to engage the Palestinians' something that would reverse the Trump administration policy in 2018 of closing what for decades was essentially a 'de facto' US embassy to the Palestinians.
If you are a bible believing Christian who supports the Jews and Israel, what President Trump has done over there is a prophetical dream come true. Donald Trump has done more for Israel in 3 and a half years than any other president since Truman signed the proclamation recognizing the recreation of the Jewish state back on
May 14, 1948. Joe Biden went on record this week saying he would happily undo large portions of that.
"Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion." Psalm 129:5 (KJB)
I don't know about you, but what Trump promised to do for Israel was one of the main reasons I voted for him in 2016, and one of the main reasons I will vote for him again in 2020. The very idea of Joe Biden saying 'vote for me and I will restore aid and funding to the PLO', which he said on Tuesday, is the very reason why no Christian in any of the 50 states should vote for Joe Biden in November.
Democratic candidate for president Joe Biden has made no secret of his opposition to the Trump peace plan.
FROM THE JERUSALEM POST: US President Donald Trump’s transition team was sharply criticized in December of 2016 when it reached out to foreign governments to defeat a UN Security Council resolution – backed by the Obama administration – condemning Israel for settlement activity. But now the shoe is very much on the other foot.
Now Trump’s “
Deal of the Century” has green-lighted Israel’s extension of its sovereignty to some 30% of the West Bank in return for a commitment to the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state under certain conditions on the rest of the territory, while presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden – who may or may not win in November – is sending messages to Israel that it ought not annex.
CLICK TO REMIND YOURSELF ALL THE AMAZING THINGS THAT PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP HAS DONE FOR ISRAEL
In other words, Biden’s team and other high-profile Democrats are signaling Israel not to do what Trump’s plan considers acceptable, a highly unusual situation surely to be raised when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrives here next week for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White head Benny Gantz.
Biden has made no secret of his opposition to the Trump plan, tweeting after it was rolled out in January that “a peace plan requires two sides to come together. This is a political stunt that could spark unilateral moves to annex territory and set back peace even more.”
And in a recorded message to the annual AIPAC Policy Conference in March, he said Israel “has to stop the threats of annexation and settlement activity.”
Trump’s plan represents a sharp break from the peace process of the last 25 years, a process some of Biden’s close foreign policy advisers have been associated with, and whose formulas the former vice president continues to espouse.
“A priority now for the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace should be resuming our dialogue with the Palestinians and pressing Israel not to take actions that make a two-state solution impossible,” he said on Tuesday.
In comments made throughout the campaign, he has pledged allegiance to the two-state solution, though he has failed to spell out in any meaningful manner how his course of action to reach that goal would be any different from the course of action that failed up until now.
WHILE BIDEN has made clear he wants to discard the “Deal of the Century,” how about other Israel-related policies? Would he reverse those policies as well?
On at least one very significant issue – the US Embassy move to Jerusalem – he has made clear that he would not change the Trump administration policy, even though he thinks that the way it was carried out was flawed.
During a fundraising event this week, Biden said the embassy move “shouldn’t have happened in the context as it did, it should happen in the context of a larger deal to help us achieve an important concession for peace in the process.” In short, he feels Israel should have been forced to give up something in return.
He said that moving the embassy as Trump did was “shortsighted” and “frivolous,” but added that “now that it is done,” he would not move the embassy back to Tel Aviv.
Which is no trifling matter, and could have implications on decisions of other countries, some of whom are waiting to see whether the embassy remains in the capital after the November election before deciding if they should relocate as well.
Although Biden said he would not touch the embassy, he did say that he would reopen the US Consulate in east Jerusalem “to engage the Palestinians,” something that would reverse the Trump administration policy in 2018 of closing what for decades was essentially a “de facto” US embassy to the Palestinians.
This move, touted by Pompeo at the time as an efficiency measure, was widely seen as a downgrade for the Palestinians. Rather than have an independent office focused solely on the West Bank and Gaza, this was folded into the US Embassy’s responsibilities as a Palestinian Affairs Unit, accountable to US Ambassador David Friedman – a man often vilified by the Palestinian Authority.
The closure of the consulate was just one move taken by the Trump administration viewed as downgrading relations with the Palestinians, as the PA cut off ties with the administration and bashed its officials in the wake of the embassy move. Another such step included the closure of the PLO Mission office in Washington in 2018. Trump administration officials said at the time that this was done because the office was meant to facilitate peace efforts that the Palestinians were boycotting, and because the PA had initiated action against Israel at the International Criminal Court.
Joe Biden pledged to reverse the PLO office closure, saying on Tuesday that in addition to reopening the US Consulate in east Jerusalem, he would also find a way to reopen the PLO’s mission, as well as “resume the decades-long economic and security assistance efforts to the Palestinians that the Trump administration stopped.”
In a response to questions The New York Times posed to all the Democratic presidential candidates in December, Biden said that restoring the aid would restore the US’s “credible engagement with both sides to the conflict,” something he thinks reopening the consulate and PLO Mission office will also do.
READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment