'The National' obtains US official record for Palestinian ‘reset’
18 March, 2021
The US administration is seeking to 'reset' relations with the Palestinians with an idea which includes $15 million in Covid-19 assistance and a rollback of several Trump administration positions that favoured Israeli settlement expansion in the West Lender and didn't prioritise the two-state solution, an interior memo reveals.
The official file, obtained exclusively by The National on Wednesday, was raised to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on March 1, by acting assistant secretary of state for close to eastern Affairs Joey Hood.
It had been drafted by deputy assistant secretary of condition for Israeli-Palestinian affairs Hady Amr and his crew.
The memo, The US Palestinian Reset and the road Forward, is the most precise proposal up to now by the Biden team to rebalance relations with the Palestinians after four years of Donald Trump, who cut ties with Ramallah.
The US memo acknowledges new challenges in approaching the Palestinian situation.
“As we reset US relations with the Palestinians, the Palestinian human body politic is at an inflection point since it moves towards its first elections in 15 years,” it says.
“As well, we [the US] have problems with a lack of connective tissue following the 2018 closure of the PLO office in Washington and refusal of Palestinian Authority leadership to directly build relationships our embassy to Israel,” the memo says.
It mentions developing disparities between Israelis and Palestinians and outlines a “reset under approach and the road ahead”.
The memo defines the US vision on the issue as you “to advance freedom, security, and prosperity for both Israelis and Palestinians in the immediate term which is important in its right, but also as means to advance the prospects of a negotiated two-state solution”.
The Trump administration's peace plan - unveiled at the White House in January 2020 - begrudgingly backed a two-state end goal for the conflict but was heavily critcised for ignoring key demands of Palestinian negotiators, including recognising east Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state.
The Biden administration memo recommends voicing US principles on attaining Israeli-Palestinian peace under a two-state solution framework “based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed terrain swaps and agreements on security and refugees”.
The brand new US team will “have a two-fold approach of maintaining and ideally enhancing the US relationship with Israel by deepening its integration in to the region while resetting the US relationship with the Palestinian people and leadership,” the memo says.
It lays away current work towards that aim, including Mr Amr re-establishing diplomatic contact with the Palestinian Authority that was chop less than Mr Trump who shut the US consulate in Jerusalem and kicked Palestinian diplomats out of your US.
The memo says that Mr Amr held “listening sessions with key counterparts at Israel’s [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] and Defence on the US-Israeli-Palestinian relationship” and that “they welcomed the restart of US-Palestinian relations”.
An integral pillar of the brand new insurance plan involves restarting assistance to the Palestinians, with ideas for latest Covid-19 aid that could be announced when the end of the month.
“State and USAID will work towards a restart of US assistance to the Palestinians in later March or perhaps early April,” the memo says.
“We are setting up a full selection of economic, protection and humanitarian assistance programmes, including through UN Relief and World Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Before the fuller start, we intend to announce $15 million in Covid-related humanitarian assistance,” it says.
Mr Trump lower tens of millions found in annual help to UNRWA and additional aid programmes together with $60 million a yr in financing for Palestinian security companies.
Rosie Scammell, The National’s Jerusalem correspondent, confirmed with UNRWA that it expects a resumption of US aid soon.
“We have quite strong indications that the US will in the near future announce resumption of help to UNRWA,” Tamara Al Rifai, spokeswoman for UNRWA explained.
She added that the organisation remains “very looking forward to a resumption of US financial but as well political engagement with UNRWA” and hoped that it would prompt return of aid from the region after a significant drop in last 3 years.
The document commits to engaging the international diplomatic community through the UN and the Quartet structures.
In a crucial gesture to the Palestinians, the document floats the thought of reopening a US objective in the Palestinian territories to signal a committed action to the two-state solution, but ideas and options are still being examined.
The file mentions a challenge in the coming Palestinian legislative elections planned for May 22 and presidential elections planned for July 31.
“The last Palestinian elections were held 15 years ago, and half of the young population hasn't had an opportunity to vote. However the implications of an election continue to be uncertain: the collapse of a power-sharing arrangement following the prior elections resulted in the Hamas takeover of Gaza,” it says.
It mentions a demand from the Palestinian Authority to the US to greatly help “encourage an Israeli arrangement to allow Palestinian voting once again in Jerusalem”.
“We will be analysing the evolving problem and can propose a US posture alongside the inter-agency.”
On the broader policy front, the brand new US team endorses a few of Mr Trump’s actions in pressing for Arab-Israeli normalisation but promises to roll back other policies that contain undermined the two-point out solution.
On encouraging claims to formally commence relations with Israel, it says: “In these fresh normalised relationships, we will look for opportunities to aid Israeli-Palestinian peace attempts and improve the quality of life for the Palestinian persons.”
More specifically on the two-point out solution, the file presents the idea to lessen incitement to violence by the Palestinians even though in the same tackling Israeli violations related to settlement activity and military incursions.
It mentions “rolling again certain actions by the last administration that take into concern our commitment or perhaps pose true barriers to a two-express solution, such as country of origin labelling”.
The Trump administration allowed products produced in against the law settlements to be labelled Israel as their country of origin.
It mentions talks aswell “to secure a Palestinian commitment to get rid of payments to persons imprisoned for works of terrorism”.
The document reintroduces a number of the themes that the George W Bush and the Barack Obama administrations pushed forward, such as the strengthening of Palestinian Organizations.
“This consists of strengthening civil society, media watchdogs and other factors of the fourth estate, such as for example emphasising to the [Palestinian Authority] the need to protect civil society through the reductions of arrests of bloggers and dissidents.
Source: japantoday.com
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