The United States will restore aid for the Palestinian people, and it will reopen diplomatic missions shuttered under the Trump administration, a US official said Tuesday.
Under new US President Joe Biden, Washington will continue using the momentum from his predecessor to encourage more countries to normalize ties with Tel Aviv. But the Biden administration recognizes that normalization is “not substitute for Israel-Palestinian peace,” acting US ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills told the Security Council on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Biden’s Middle East policy will be “to support a mutually agreed, two-state solution, in which Israel lives in peace and security, alongside a viable Palestinian state,” Mills said.
Former President Donald Trump unveiled a peace plan, which envisioned a disjointed Palestinian state that turned over key parts of the West Bank to Israel. It also sided with Israel on key contentious issues that have bedeviled past peace efforts, including borders and the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements, and attached nearly impossible conditions for granting the Palestinians their hoped-for state.
Nevertheless, Trump was able to broker normalization deals between Israel and four Arab states, which included the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco.
