11/18/2023 10:56 pm (current 11/18/2023 10:56 pm)
US President Biden calls for leadership for the Palestinian territories ©APA/AFP
US President Joe Biden is committed to the political reunification of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority. After the war between Israel and Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, both areas should be governed by this authority, Biden wrote in an opinion piece for the Washington Post published on Saturday.
“Gaza and the West Bank should be brought together under a single governmental structure, ultimately a revitalized Palestinian Authority.” A two-state solution is sought, Biden wrote. There should be neither an expulsion of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip nor a reoccupation, siege or blockade of this area.
The US President also put sanctions in place against extremist Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The Democrat once again criticized “extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank”.
He emphasized that he strongly advocated with the Israeli leadership that those who perpetrated this violence must be held accountable. “The United States stands ready to take its own actions, including imposing travel bans on extremists who attack civilians in the West Bank,” he warned. The Democrat explicitly did not use the word settler.
In the long article, Biden recorded what he believes the future in the region should be like – and how the path to get there should be charted. “This much is clear: a two-state solution is the only way to ensure the long-term security of the Israeli and Palestinian people,” Biden wrote. “While it may seem right now that this future has never been so far away, the crisis has made it more urgent than ever.”
Biden emphasized that the Palestinian people deserve their own state and a future free from Islamic Hamas. “The images from the Gaza Strip and the deaths of thousands of civilians, including children, also break my heart.” Now the goal must be to end the war forever and break the cycle of violence. It is necessary to build “something stronger” in the Middle East so that history does not continually repeat itself. The Gaza Strip “should never again be used as a platform for terrorism,” Biden said.
The 80-year-old also wrote that the US continues to support Ukraine, which has been attacked by Russia. “Both (Kremlin leader Vladimir) Putin and Hamas are fighting to wipe a neighboring democracy off the map.” America cannot and will not allow this. “The world expects us to solve the problems of our time. That is the job of leadership, and America will do it.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is skeptical of US President Biden’s demand that the Gaza Strip be placed under Palestinian Authority control in the medium term. “I think that the Palestinian Authority, in its current form, is not capable of taking responsibility for Gaza,” Netanyahu said in Tel Aviv.