The Palestinian-rejected Deal of the Century is still on the agenda of the Biden administration Written by Brigadier General: Ahmed Issa, former Director General of the Palestine Institute for National Security Research

Written by: Brigadier General Ahmed Issa

While President Biden announced during his election campaign, as well as after his success in the elections and assuming the presidency in January 2021, that his approach to the Middle East will be different from that of President Trump, especially with regard to the Iranian nuclear file, the relationship with Saudi Arabia, the war on Yemen, and the deal of the century plan. However, the facts on the ground prove that the engines and goals that drive the Biden administration in everything related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the approaches to addressing it are still the same engines and goals that prompted and moved President Trump to put forward the plan for the deal of the century, which means that the Palestinians are betting on their fairness on the part of the administration. The current US administrations or successive administrations in the foreseeable future are a waste of time and a misplaced effort.

It is true that Biden did not mention much of the deal of the century since he assumed the presidency, but on the other hand, there has been no change in the core issues it contained, especially with regard to Trump's recognition of Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem, in addition to that he did not change the arbitrary measures taken His predecessor had signed its decrees, and most importantly, he had confirmed during a press conference with the South Korean president held at the White House in May 2021 that "there is no peace in the Middle East without Israel's neighbors accepting its existence as an independent Jewish state."

This explains the Biden administration's interest in the Abraham Accords, known as the Convention on the Normalization of Arab-Israeli Relations, apart from the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, whose provisions stipulated Israel's complete withdrawal from the lands it occupied in 1967 and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital in return for the normalization of Arab and Islamic relations. With her, the six-party Negev summit, which included, in addition to the Israeli and American foreign ministers, the foreign ministers of Egypt, the Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, was one of the clearest manifestations of this interest, especially since the capitals that have printed with Israel do not hide their recognition of the Jewishness of the state.

The aforementioned makes it legitimate to believe that there is an identification of appreciation between Washington and Tel Aviv, according to which the Palestinians and their leadership are the obstacle to accepting and accepting a solution that embodies the Israeli vision, especially after the Palestinians rejected (and well they did) Clinton's proposals, which were described as generous at the time. by American, Israeli, Palestinian and Arab parties, and it seems here that this appreciation has developed later into a decision, and then into a long-term plan of action intended to end the Palestinian monopoly on deciding their fate and gradually transfer this decision to the Arab capitals that revolve in the American orbit, whether those that have marked their relations with Tel Aviv, or that will be signed in the near future.

The important thing here is that the normalization train has started from its station and is still on its normal course, despite the departure of Trump and the arrival of Biden, and perhaps the most prominent difference between the approaches of the two administrations in this field is the place of the Middle East in the list of priorities of the administration.

As the Middle East region was the first stop on President Trump's first foreign trip that he visited, starting with Riyadh, where an Arab-Islamic-American summit was held in May 2016, as an American declaration to start implementing the plan to transfer the decision of the Palestinian fate to Arab capitals instead of Ramallah through The establishment of an Arab-American-Israeli NATO, however, it is clear that the Biden administration believes that restoring the relationship with Western Europe (NATO) and Asia or the (Quad) axis are priorities that precede the Middle East, according to Biden's strategy, which carried the slogan (America's return to leadership of the global system), which was The White House published it in March 2021, when London and Brussels were the capitals he visited on his first foreign trip, then Seoul, the capital of South Korea, was the second stop, and his visit to the Middle East was postponed more than once.

It is noteworthy here that the persistence of the internal Palestinian division, in addition to the decline in the status of the Palestinian national movement in the Palestinian society as shown by the results of the student, local and trade union elections, which doubles the burdens on the shoulders of future generations of the Palestinian people.

In the end, the share of what this article went to may be correct equal to its share of error, but whatever the share is, it is a possible scenario, so what are we to do?