Every United States leader, past and present, Democrat and Republican, utters some version of the refrain that the US-Israel relationship is “unbreakable and unshakable.” Notwithstanding this “ironclad assurance,” the Biden administration continues to cause cracks and fissures in the relationship between the two nations.
While it claims to support democratic norms and values, including the democratically elected leadership of nations, the Biden administration has sought to undermine the elected government of Israel and its prime minister. It has weighed in on internal Israeli domestic affairs and has condemned Jewish Israeli visits to the Jews’ holiest religious sites.
Now the Biden administration has reimposed a ban that cuts scientific and technological cooperation with Israeli institutions in Judea and Samaria, reinstating a boycott of Jews and Jewish institutions that exist anywhere in Judea and Samaria, claiming that those Israeli institutions, cities, towns and neighborhoods should not exist in the land area erroneously called by many “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
What those people don’t realize is that the so-called “borders” they claim Israel has violated by building these cities, towns and neighborhoods (what many call “settlements”) are actually nothing more than armistice lines from a war launched 75 years ago by some of Israel’s Arab neighbors in a failed effort to destroy the nascent Jewish state of Israel.
At the very end of the Obama/Biden term, the administration shamefully abstained as the United Nations Security Council passed the odious resolution US 2334, which deemed any Jewish presence over the 1967 lines to be violative of international law. That resolution viewed the Jewish return to the Western Wall, the restoration of the 3,000-year-old Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery, the reclaiming of Jewish rights to the resting places of the Jewish people’s matriarchs and patriarchs outside Bethlehem and in Hebron and other areas to be akin to war crimes.
The pretense about international law
That resolution, like so many other UN resolutions, continues the diplomatic pretense that there is a concept of international law that applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Four years ago I spoke in front of the UN Security Council rejecting the notion that UN resolutions, international consensus or international law will resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. None of those will. This was not me going rogue. I made this speech with the backing of The White House and the State Department.
The Trump administration in which I served sought to stop the wholesale rejection of Jewish claims over territory and Jewish holy places beyond those armistice lines. Recognizing truth, the Trump administration deemed the Jewish cities, towns, and villages in the disputed areas of Judea and Samaria (what many call the West Bank or “Occupied Palestinian Territory”) as not illegal per se, a clear break from prior discriminatory US policy.
Former president Trump also withdrew from the antisemitic United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), a specialized agency of the United Nations supposedly aimed at promoting world peace and security. Yet, UNESCO’s mission seems to be based on lies.
UNESCO NEVER misses an opportunity to deny Jewish history in the Land of Israel. The Biden administration has indicated that it will reenter UNESCO in July, even though the organization has openly declared war on Jewish heritage sites in Israel and seeks to engage in historical revisionism regarding Jewish history.
We are now seeing a return by the Biden administration to prior policies that range from troubling to dangerous, each of which causes more instability in and threats to the region. The Biden administration is reportedly negotiating a new deal with the murderous Iranian regime which will, once again, provide the Iranian regime with billions of dollars in sanctions relief, while not requiring the regime to dismantle its nuclear program or its terrorist proxies.
Indeed, the Iran deal as described once again looks away from the progress the Iranian regime has made to develop nuclear weapons and ignores the other threats from the regime, including its export of terrorism throughout the Middle East and beyond. Such a deal will be a win for those who want to destroy Israel and seriously threaten our Arab allies and will continue to allow the Iranian regime to subjugate the people of Iran.
Now, on the heels of these misguided and reckless policies, the Biden administration has decided to stop scientific and technological cooperation with Jewish entities in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and what the Biden administration and others refer to as “East Jerusalem.” The Biden administration’s intention to once again discriminate against Jews and Jewish institutions based on where they reside or exist takes the US-Israel relationship significantly backward.
This current decision to boycott US-Israeli cooperation with institutions like Ariel University – a scientific and technological hub that services Jews and Arabs alike – places the Biden administration arm in arm with the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to demonize Israel and turn her into a pariah state. Despite pronouncements of rejecting BDS and seeking to fight antisemitism, this decision by the Biden administration actually fosters both. It is nothing more than a boycott of Jews who live, work, study and create in areas of Judea and Samaria, the beating heartland of Jewish history.
A US State Department representative claims that “This guidance is simply reflective of the longstanding US position... that the ultimate disposition of the geographic areas which came under the administration of Israel after June 5, 1967 is a final status matter... ”
In reality, this policy does something much different. It seeks to hide, deny or perhaps even uproot Jewish history. It is discriminatory and emboldens Palestinian demands and intransigence. It drives the potential for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which is so distant at the moment, even further away.
With one hand the Biden administration is scrubbing away Jewish history. With the other hand it is negotiating with the Iranian regime to enable it to continue to threaten Israel and potentially attack the Jewish state with nuclear weapons.
Worse, it does this while telling us that there is nothing to see here. There is much to see in these terribly misguided, perhaps even sinister, decisions. I hope saner heads will prevail.
The writer was White House Middle East envoy in the Trump administration. He is the author of the widely acclaimed book In the Path of Abraham, and director of Arab-Israel Diplomacy for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.