The Biden-Bennett battle of wills on the US Consulate in East Jerusalem – Center East Monitor

Any hopes that the elimination of Benjamin Netanyahu from energy would deliver us nearer to a revitalised peace course of or much less oppression of the Palestinian folks have been dashed.

The brand new Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, has been unequivocal in his rejection of makes an attempt to attract him and the Palestinians nearer collectively. He just lately issued three nos. No to restarting peace talks, no to meeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and no to a Palestinian state. He just lately went further stating that “a Palestinian state can be a terror state”. On this his racism involves the fore as a result of he means that no Palestinian entity might be something however a terror entity.

Bennett forgets that to Palestinians beneath occupation, Israel is the epitome of terror. Ask Palestinians whose properties have been demolished, whose olive harvest has been destroyed or bushes minimize. Ask Palestinian kids snatched from their dad and mom in the midst of the evening. Ask the folks of Gaza beneath a 15-year-old siege and who misplaced family members beneath Israeli bombardment. Go to the location of UN OCHA and skim their weekly reviews and you’ll rapidly realise, when you aren’t already conscious, the phobia the Palestinians face.

Those that thought that the exit of the anti-Palestinian Trump Administration and the arrival of Barack Obama’s Vice President into the White Home would herald a brand new daybreak that might reverse all of Trump’s immoral and unlawful acts had been predictably dissatisfied.

Whereas US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in conversation with Israeli International Minister Gabi Ashkenazi “emphasised the administration’s perception that Israelis and Palestinians ought to get pleasure from equal measures of freedom, safety, prosperity and democracy,” he has seen little progress from the Israeli facet. His view on settlement exercise solely went so far as his name that Israel “ought to chorus from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and that undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state answer.” Sure, this can be a higher place than former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision to say that the settlements weren’t ‘pre se unlawful’.

READ: Israel’s Arab allies have no delusions that it will change its colonial policies

The People did make some strikes again from Trump’s most damaging insurance policies on UNRWA by restoring some funding. Blinken has additionally talked about reopening the Palestinian Mission in America and the US Consulate in East Jerusalem, which acts because the de facto embassy to the Palestinians. Trump, not solely recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he closed the East Jerusalem Consulate, partly beneath strain from his Ambassador to Israel David Freidman.

The Palestinian Mission in Washington remains closed. Nonetheless, it’s the East Jerusalem Consulate that has turn out to be a battle of wills between the American president and the Israeli prime minster.

Bennett introduced that he’ll not allow the Consulate to reopen as “There isn’t any place for an American consulate that serves the Palestinians in Jerusalem.” He additional said that “Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel solely.” He mentioned this at a press convention, alongside Alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Lapid went additional in what’s a further problem not solely to Biden. Lapid mentioned: “If the People need to open a consulate in Ramallah, we now have no downside with that…. Sovereignty in Jerusalem belongs to at least one nation alone, the State of Israel.”

Most of the worldwide missions to the Palestinians are in Sheikh Jarrah, the location of the battle between 28 Palestinian households and a US primarily based settler organisation who’s after their land. It falsely claims possession of the land, and an Israeli court which has no jurisdiction in occupied East Jerusalem is engaged in a facilitation of ethnic cleaning as it’s searching for methods to take the warmth out of the threats of evictions now and postpone them to a later date.

What’s going to Biden do now about reopening the consulate? Will he insist on the reopening or will he let the present state of affairs proceed? There isn’t any doubt that the Israelis will double down on the place they introduced. They won’t need to give again something Trump gave them. It must be remembered that Trump additionally recognised that the illegally occupied Syrian Golan Heights are a part of Israel. Biden has not reversed that recognition up to now.

READ: Bennett: No negotiations to create a ‘terrorist state’ in Israel

What the latest Israeli determination has raised is just not solely that the US Consulate wouldn’t reopen in Jerusalem however the message to different states with Missions in East Jerusalem is likely to be that there’ll come a time once they too should be moved to the West Financial institution. Israel all the time does what is likely to be regarded as an irrational. Nonetheless, it’s a colonising state and the urge for food of the coloniser to seize extra land is countless. It would proceed to ethnically cleanse Jerusalem to show it in to a Jewish metropolis, whereas making the political strikes to deepen Israel’s ‘sovereignty’. Having Palestinians and diplomatic missions in East Jerusalem go towards its expansionist greed.

Israel enjoys full impunity and unwavering help from the so-called worldwide group to do what it likes. Trump’s Administration ensured that. Take its determination to label six Palestinian human rights organisations terrorist organisations regardless of there being no credible evidence to help this absurd declare, and the shy response of a lot of the worldwide group.

For as soon as maybe, I’m backing President Biden. I hope he’ll win the battle of wills to reopen the US Consulate, however I additionally hope the opposite states with consulates in East Jerusalem will stand robust if the strain to maneuver to the West Financial institution comes. Jerusalem is just not solely the missions’ house however house to a whole bunch of hundreds of Palestinians who need to keep and never transfer to the West Financial institution or anyplace else. It’s their metropolis and Palestine’s capital.

The views expressed on this article belong to the creator and don’t essentially replicate the editorial coverage of Center East Monitor.