As the three-week-old war between Israel and Hamas enters a “long and difficult” new phase, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says, President Joe Biden is calling on Israeli and Arab leaders to think deeply about their possible post-war reality.
He argues that finally reaching agreement on a long-sought two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be a priority.
“There is no going back to the status quo as it was on October 6,” Biden told reporters, referring to the day before Hamas militants attacked Israel, sparking the latest war. The White House says Biden conveyed the same message directly to Netanyahu during a phone call last week.
“It also means that once this crisis is over, there has to be a vision for what comes next, and from our perspective it has to be a two-state solution,” Biden said.
The push for a two-state solution — one in which Israel would coexist with an independent Palestinian state — has eluded U.S. presidents and Middle East diplomats for decades. It has been pushed into the background since the last American-led peace talks collapsed in 2014 due to disagreements over Israeli settlements, the release of Palestinian prisoners and other issues.
Palestinian statehood is something Biden rarely addressed early in his term. During his visit to the West Bank last year, Biden said the “ground is not yet ripe” for new attempts to achieve lasting peace, even as he reiterated to the Palestinians longstanding U.S. support for statehood.
Now, as concerns grow that the war between Israel and Hamas could expand into a broader regional conflict, Biden has begun to emphasize that efforts for a Palestinian state should no longer be ignored once the bombings and shootings stop.
Until recently, Biden had placed far more emphasis on his administration’s achievable goal of normalizing relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors than on resuming peace talks.
Even his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, made no mention of Palestinian statehood in a lengthy essay written shortly before the Oct. 7 attack describing Biden’s global foreign policy efforts. In an updated version of the Foreign Affairs essay published online, Sullivan wrote that the administration is “committed to a two-state solution.” A White House official also says normalization talks have always included important proposals to benefit the Palestinians.
There is no shortage of obstacles standing in the way of Biden’s postwar vision. An independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is seen as a non-starter by Israel’s far-right government. An ineffective Palestinian Authority controls parts of the West Bank and enjoys little credibility among the people it governs. Meanwhile, an upcoming US presidential election could make Biden a less than ideal mediator in 2024.
Aaron David Miller, who has served as a Middle East adviser to Democratic and Republican administrations, said Biden’s recent emphasis on a two-state solution is an “ambitious talking point.”
“The likelihood is very, very low,” he said. “It’s basically a mission impossible.”
Calls for a two-state solution were raised Saturday at the Republican Jewish Coalition summit in Las Vegas, where Republican presidential candidates criticized Biden’s Israel policy and what they saw as Democrats’ failure to adequately address anti-Semitism in the United States to condemn. One presidential candidate, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, said Israel should feel free to abandon “the myth of a two-state solution.”
The White House is aware that Biden’s calls for a two-state solution are ambitious and may not be feasible in the short term, according to a White House official who was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations publicly and on condition of the Anonymity spoke. It also acknowledges that the Netanyahu government, facing public backlash for failing to prevent the Hamas attack, is focused on its operations against Hamas and is not paying much attention to Biden’s speech on Palestinian statehood gives.
Still, Biden believes it is important for him and his team to convey “hope” and make clear that his administration supports a Palestinian state, the official said.
Dennis Ross, a peace negotiator in the George HW Bush and Bill Clinton administrations, said it was important to start planning for the future, even if there was no end in sight to the current conflict.
“You can’t go back to the point where you can ignore the Palestinians as a problem,” Ross said. “It’s not hopeless. If you get beyond that, it’s not hopeless.”
The renewed calls for Palestinian statehood also come as Palestinian American groups, Muslim advocacy groups and some fellow Democrats have expressed frustration with Biden’s support for Israel at a time when the Palestinian death toll is rising and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza continues to express its unwavering support for Israel.
“This is not about anyone’s beliefs,” said John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. “It’s about finding a future for the Middle East that is more cooperative, stable and secure, where Israel is more integrated into the region and we don’t give up.”
Biden has expressed concern about the worsening conditions for innocent civilians in Gaza. But his insistence that he will not dictate how Israeli forces conduct their operations could complicate his ability to maintain his credibility as an impartial mediator. At a private White House meeting with Biden and senior advisers last week, Muslim leaders in the U.S. urged the president to call for a ceasefire.
Participants also told Biden that his silence on what they say is Israel’s collective punishment of innocent civilians in Gaza is undermining his standing among Arab Americans and Muslims, including in states that could have a major impact on the 2024 elections.
They also expressed concern to Biden over his statement that he had “no confidence” in the Gaza death toll as it is tabulated by the Hamas-run Health Ministry. According to the ministry, more than 8,000 people, mostly women and minors, were killed in Gaza. More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed during the first Hamas attack.
Rami Nashashibi, the founder of the Inner City Muslim Action Network in Chicago and a participant in the meeting, said he told Biden that his comments about the death toll in Gaza were “dehumanizing.” Nashashibi added that he and the other attendees told the president that his comments were particularly troubling because Biden has shown deep compassion for suffering people throughout his time in office.
“I discussed this with him very directly, and others in the room did so in a way that I thought was heard and acknowledged,” Nashashibi said.
The renewed push for statehood could be seen by Biden as a sign of his commitment to Palestinian sovereignty. But already his handling of the Middle East turbine threatens to hurt his re-election prospects in 2024, and any progress Biden can make toward a two-state solution will likely require a second term.
Some Democratic Party officials are concerned that his handling of the war could hurt Biden and the party’s standing among Arab American voters, as well as younger voters who polls show are more sympathetic to Palestinian issues than the party’s older and more centrist voters.
A senior Michigan Democratic Party official said Biden’s handling of the war has already emerged as a “huge” problem in the state and could become even more vexing if the war continues and the death toll in Gaza continues to rise. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive party concerns.
Biden was already expected to face a close race in the state in 2024. He won Michigan by less than 3 percentage points in 2020, and Republican Donald Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the state by 0.3% in 2016. More than 300,000 people of Middle Eastern or North African ancestry live in Michigan.
“Even if he’s down by just a few points, he’s already in a very close race,” said longtime Michigan pollster Bernie Porn.
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