‘When this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next,’ president says
WASHINGTON — As the three-week-old Israel-Hamas war enters what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says could be a “long and difficult” new stage, President Joe Biden is calling on Israeli and Arab leaders to think hard about their eventual postwar reality.
The push for a two-state solution — one in which Israel would co-exist with an independent Palestinian state — has eluded U.S. presidents and Middle East diplomats for decades. It’s been put on the back burner since the last American-led effort at peace talks collapsed in 2014 amid disagreements on Israeli settlements, the release of Palestinian prisoners and other issues.
Even his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, in a lengthy essay that was written shortly before the Oct. 7 attack and described Biden’s global foreign policy efforts made no mention of Palestinian statehood. In an updated version of the Foreign Affairs essay posted online, Sullivan wrote that the administration was “committed to a two-state solution.” White House officials also say the normalization talks have always included significant proposals to benefit the Palestinians.
The White House is cognizant that Biden’s calls for a two-state solution are ambitious and are perhaps not achievable in the near term, according to a White House official who was not authorized to publicly discuss internal deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The renewed calls for Palestinian statehood also come as Palestinian American groups, Muslim advocacy organizations and some fellow Democrats have expressed frustration that Biden continues to express full-throated support for Israel at a time when the Palestinian death count is mounting and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza worsening.
They also expressed their concern to Biden over his statement that he has “no confidence” in the Gaza death count because it is tabulated by the Hamas-run Health Ministry. The ministry says more than 8,000 people, mostly women and minors, have been killed in Gaza. More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during the initial Hamas onslaught.
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