PA ambassador to UK Husam Zomlot argues former VP has sent message to Netanyahu that there will be no consequences for annexing West Bank — no matter who wins US election<
By ERIC CORTELLESSA, TOI
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian envoy to Washington, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Washington, on February 16, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
WASHINGTON — Palestinian Authority official Husam Zomlot decried Democratic candidate Joe Biden on Tuesday for not taking a strong enough stance against Israel’s proposed annexation of parts of the West Bank.
Zomlot, the PLO’s ambassador to the United Kingdom and a former envoy in Washington, argued that Biden’s unwillingness to threaten harsh consequences for Israel should Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extend sovereignty to the West Bank settlements enables him to move forward with his plan.
“We are not seeing any new sort of policy lever on the part of the Biden campaign that would actually help in the changing of the calculus,” Zomlot said on a Zoom call organized by the US-based Israel Policy Forum, a nonprofit that supports a two-state solution. “So far, it’s nothing that would actually dissuade Netanyahu from going ahead with annexation.”
Biden has stated on multiple occasions that he opposes annexation. “It would choke off any hope for peace,” he told the AIPAC Policy Conference in March. But he has not delineated what the US policy response should be.
The former vice president has said he would not reduce US aid to Israel, if he is elected. “I’m not going to place conditions on security assistance, given the serious threats that Israelis face,” Biden said last week. “This would be, I think, irresponsible.”
On the Tuesday Zoom call, Zomlot insisted that this posturing effectively sends a message that Netanyahu could unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank without any material ramifications from the United States, no matter who wins the November election.
“If no one is now calling for implementing sanctions, if annexation does not merit the imposition of sanctions by the US, I don’t know what will actually qualify for sanctions,” he said. “If Netanyahu does not hear and feel the word sanctions … then his calculus will continue and he will [enact] annexation.”
Over the course of the 2020 Democratic primary, several of Biden’s former challengers floated the idea of leveraging aid to Israel to disincentivize the Israeli government from executing policies that damaged the possibility of a two-state outcome.
In the last few weeks, Democrats and progressive pro-Israel activists have debated how harsh the US response should be under a new administration, as the move — backed in principle by the Trump White House — is widely considered a red line that would severely weaken the possibility of an eventual two-state outcome.
Two former Obama officials have proposed slashing some aid to Jerusalem as a consequence, while others have said the United States should refuse to shield Israel from international censure. More than 30 Obama national security alums urged the Democratic National Committee to take a strong stance on annexation in the 2020 party platform.
Responding to Democratic rumblings of discontent, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee released a statement two weeks ago that sought to convince lawmakers not to push for any changes to US-Israel policy as a reaction to annexation.
Zomlot, who previously served as the Palestinian envoy to Washington before US President Donald Trump shuttered the office in September 2018, said the move would would fundamentally change the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We do consider annexation to be the smoking gun,” he said. “It does not only represent a change … it’s a transformation, a statement, not only in the political sense but in the legal sense of the end of the very notion of partition, of the very principle of a two-state solution. It is a psychological threshold that, should we pass, it would be a point of no return.”
US President Donald Trump (left) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrive for an announcement of Trump’s Middle East peace plan at the White House, January 28, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images via JTA)
The State Department said it is ready to recognize Israel’s annexation of parts of the West Bank, although an official told The Times of Israel that the step should be “in the context of the Government of Israel agreeing to negotiate with the Palestinians along the lines set forth in President Trump’s Vision.”
Trump unveiled his Mideast proposal in January, which allowed Israel to maintain roughly 30 percent of the West Bank.
“The Trump administration is more into annexation than the Israeli government itself,” Zomlot said. “We believe that Netanyahu is serious, and he has every single reason to be, because the costs are far less than what he perceives to be the benefit for him personally.”
Zomlot added that it was therefore on the presumptive Democratic nominee to convince Netanyahu that annexation would result in serious repercussions under a future Democratic leader. Otherwise, he asserted, the pathway toward a two-state outcome will be permanently foreclosed.
“If we don’t prevent it now, it will be a new dawn,” he said. “If the Biden team does not send the right messages now and if they do not contribute to changing the calculus — and they are not so far – I think the headache that Mr. Biden will inherit once he is elected, if he is elected, will be immense.”
@ Sebastien Zorn:
States don’t have “friends and foes”, they only have interests. Of course, the citizens of various states love to think about politics in idealistic terms to keep their illusions and to rationalize their rulers behavior as fair and just.
I have no idea what Trump thinks about Israel or Iran but in terms of state interests it is completely irrelevant.
Mr. Trump’s emotional involvement with any of the states the US deals with is completely irrelevant.
The US will always absolutely cold bloodedly do that which is considered to be in the US interests, no matter individual politicians’ emotions.
One of these interests is to “restrain” Israel, therefore the US will do all sorts of things to accomplish this.
Another one of those interests is to support the military-industrial complex, therefore, the US will foment or tolerate military conflicts in order to help its defense industry to sell and test weapons.
Also, these military conflicts keep certain countries at each other’s throats which also benefits the US.
@ Reader:
Yes, it’s a right-Keynsian stimulus to the U.S. economy but that doesn’t mean that the US just regards friends and foes the same. Do you think Trump equates Israel with Iran?
@ Sebastien Zorn:
Iraq has been getting foreign aid from the US for years “to fight the Islamic State”.
This doesn’t disprove my point that the US funds both the Shia and Sunna Muslim states and that the US foreign aid represents a subsidy to the US military-industrial complex which benefits from ongoing military conflicts.
Do you seriously think that the US would give Iraq money to buy French, Russian, or Chinese weapons at Iraq’s own discretion?
There is a contract and it states that the weapons must come from the US.
@ Reader:
Iraq has requested $165,860,000 to fight the Islamic State
REQUESTED FUNDING, FY 2020
https://www.foreignassistance.gov/explore/country/Iraq
@ Sebastien Zorn:
“crafted an alliance” Well, Iraq is a predominantly Shia state, and it got $5 billion in the US foreign aid in 2020 (see my previous comment with a link on the subject).
Trump is a part of the system, whatever you want to call it – The Deep State, The Swamp, or whatever.
There’s no point in making it look too complicated.
It’s like Truman wrote in WWII: “If the Soviet Union starts winning we’ll support Germany, if Germany starts winning, we’ll support the Soviet Union.”
The aim is to exhaust both sides so that the US comes out a winner.
This is a centuries’ old tactic going back to the British colonial policy and from them to Rome, and from Rome who knows where.
@ Reader:Hmmm. nteresting point. I don’t know. Maybe that’s another reason that the Deep State hates Trump? He has crafted an alliance between the Sunni Arab states of the Gulf and Israel against Iran and put sanctions on Iran.
@ Sebastien Zorn:
The “aid” is, in fact, a subsidy to the US weapons manufacturers because Israel has to use it to buy American-made weapons. The previous “aid” renewal document also included for the 1st time the agreement on the part of Israel to not use any of this money for Israel’s own research and development.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/us-foreign-aid-by-country/
“Many countries all over the world receive foreign aid from the United States, but there are a few that receive significant amounts. Iraq received over $5 billion in 2016, Afghanistan also receives over $5 billion, Israel received over $3 billion, and Egypt and Jordan each received over $1 billion in aid. These countries receive a significant amount of military aid. In fact, all of Israel’s $3.1 billion was in military aid.”
NOW, if you sold billions of $$ worth of weapons to both sides of the conflict, would you be really interested in them making peace (especially if the military-industrial complex represented a major part of your economy)?
Wouldn’t slashing aid be illegal? Didn’t Obama sign a ten-year contract?
Finally, the obstructors are being ignored.