Biden Changes Trump's Program With Israel and Palestinians Economically and Politically

Nadene Goldfoot                                                

                             Biden and Abbas, back in the saddle, again.  

"A US State Department spokesman said Tuesday that the previous administration’s slashing of aid to the Palestinians had failed to produce results and reiterated the new American leadership’s intention to restore such financial assistance.  It has only harmed innocent Palestinians,” Ned Price said at a press briefing."  Edward "Ned" Price is the spokesman for the United States Department of State. He has served as a political advisor and is a former intelligence officer who worked at the United States Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 until February 2017..

In 2016, the United States contributed $368 million to the agency, and $350 million in 2017, but has cut around one third of its contributions for 2018.

   What has harmed innocent Palestinians is the correct leadership they have of using money to create tunnels and buy ammunition to use against Israel, such as rockets, mortars and missiles.  After 70 years of backing the PLO and now Hamas terrorism, the Arab states are wising up and are tire of throwing their money at them.  The Palestinians have been doing well raking the cash in from both the Arab states and the USA.  

 "The Associated Press reported that as one of Barack Obama's final actions in office before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, he released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority.  Trump was able to freeze it.  The money came from federal aid the US provides to the West Bank and Gaza, aid that totaled about $355 million in 2015. The sum released by Obama during his last hours in office had been held up by a group in Congress.

“President Biden has been clear that he intends to restore U.S. assistance programs that support economic development programs and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, and to take steps to reopen diplomatic relations that were closed by the last U.S. administration,.” Mills, US Ambassador in Jerusalem said. 

To pursue this goal, Mills said, “the United States will urge Israel’s government and the Palestinians to avoid unilateral steps that make a two-state solution more difficult, such as annexation of territory, settlement activity, demolitions, incitement to violence, and providing compensation for individuals in prison for acts of terrorism.”

He's telling Israel that they cannot annex any part of  Judea and Samaria , allow cities and towns to build anymore apartments.  They are telling the Palestinians to stop any violence against Israel such as flying kites of fire into farmland and forests in Israel or paying terrorists for acts of terrorism which has been their practice.  In other words; all actions such as this are frozen.  My question is this:  who's going to police these actions?  

 On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s U.N. Ambassador,  suggested that the council discuss what he called “the real obstacles to peace: Palestinian incitement and culture of hate.”       

International aid has been provided to Palestinians since at least the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The Palestinians view the aid as keeping the Israeli–Palestinian peace process going, while the Israelis claim that it is used to fund terrorism and removes the imperative to Palestinians to negotiate a settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinian National Authority (PA) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip receives one of the highest levels of aid in the world. A dispute exists as to whether Palestinians or Israelis are the largest per capita beneficiaries of foreign aid. Aid has been provided to the Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian non-governmental organizations (PNGOs) as well as Palestinian political factions by various foreign governments, international organisations, international non-governmental organizations (INGOs), and charities, besides other sources.                                 

    Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat, PhD; born April 28, 1955, was a Palestinian politician and diplomat who was the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO.  He certainly showed hatred of Israel.    He died in November 2020 from Covid 19 at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel.  He had had a lung transplant in 2017 in the USA.    He served as chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee until 12 February 2011.  As part of the Palestinian power-struggle, as a politician, Erekat was considered to be a Yasser Arafat loyalist, including the Camp David meetings in 2000 and the negotiations at Taba in 2001. Erekat was also, along with Arafat and Faisal Husseini, one of the three high-ranking Palestinians who asked Ariel Sharon not to visit the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem in September 2000, an event which was followed by the Second Intifada, a war against the Jewish state.  

 Erekat was born in Abu Dis which has the total area of (28.3 km² or 10.9 sq mi).  In 1967 census, the population was 2,640.   Abu Dis or Abu Deis is a Palestinian village in the Jerusalem Governorate of the Palestinian National Authority bordering Jerusalem. Since the 1995 Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, Abu Dis land has been mostly part of "Area C", under full Israeli control.  C is the area sliver on the east side of  Judea-Samaria.  Abu Dis must be the only Arab village that was there.  Most of them are on the West side.   

                                                             

                 The white section on right bordering the Jordan River is area C, area for Israel.  Settlement area in map means area C for Jews.  

He was a member of the Palestinian branch of the Erekat family, itself a branch of the Howeitat tribal confederation. Erekat was one of seven children, with his brothers and sisters living outside of Israel or the Palestinian territories. He was 12 years old when the Israelis occupied the West Bank, and was detained by them a year later for writing anti-occupation graffiti, posting fliers and throwing stones.  After gaining his doctorate in England, Erekat moved to the West Bank town of Nablus to lecture in political science at An-Najah National University and also served for 12 years on the editorial board of the locally widely circulated Palestinian newspaper, Al-Quds. which means Jerusalem in Arabic.  

 The leader of the Palestinian Authority today is  Mahmoud Abbas, Phd;   an example of corruption. Abbas entered his 12th year as president this year, despite being elected to only a four-year term in 2005.  Mahmoud Abbas, also known by the kunya Abu Mazen, is the president of the State of Palestine and Palestinian National Authority. He has been the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization since 11 November 2004, and Palestinian president since 15 January 2005.  Mahmoud Abbas was born on 15 November 1935 in Safed, in the Galilee region of Mandatory Palestine (now Israel). His family fled to Syria during the 1948 Palestine war. 

Before going to Egypt, Abbas graduated from the University of Damascus, where he studied law.  Abbas later entered graduate studies at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow, where he earned a Candidate of Sciences degree (the Soviet equivalent of a PhD). His doctoral dissertation was "The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism".  With a mind-set like his, I can't think of a worse person to deal with for Israel.  

In the mid-1950s, Abbas became heavily involved in underground Palestinian politics, joining a number of exiled Palestinians in Qatar, where he was Director of Personnel in the emirate's Civil Service. While there in 1961, he was recruited to become a member of Fatah, founded by Yasser Arafat and five other Palestinians in Kuwait in the late 1950s. At the time, Arafat was establishing the groundwork of Fatah by enlisting wealthy Palestinians in Qatar, Kuwait, and other Gulf States.

We have a situation here.  Israel's Judaism is historical starting with Abraham and Moses of the Middle East, distant cousins of the Palestinians. it started in Judea and Samaria which they called "Israel,"  and which today's politicians call THE WEST BANK.   It was Kings Saul and David and Solomon of the land who established an empire with Jerusalem as the capital.  This goes back to the 2nd millennium BCE to 70 CE when the Romans destroyed so much but with some Jews left on the land.  

Palestinians never had a country there, but more came to the area to find work after a surge of Jews returned from Russia in the 1880s and started building.  The Palestinians found work.  Those with farms left and sold the land to the Jews.  Erekat's village has always been just that, a village, established somewhere in the 1600s, possibly.  His feelings towards this village were strong, but not as strong as a whole people whose religion, Judaism, comes from this history and its people and the laws of Moses.  Palestinians have been breaking the rules set up in the Oslo conferences of A,B, and C.  They've been building everywhere in the areas.  There is no force stopping them so far.  Biden's rules will only concede to them and be against Israel if I read this right.  They've also been breaking islam's laws of attacking but not warning the Israelis.  Even nasty Iran has been doing that, warning Israel of their intentions.  

Resource:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_aid_to_Palestinians#:~:text=In%202016%2C%20the%20United%20States,of%20its%20contributions%20for%202018.

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-world-news-israel-united-nations-a5f546bf188f808ba29f381d76d44729

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Dis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas