Washington, DC – Even in contrast with the risky nature of Israel’s decades-long occupation of the Palestinian territories, the previous few weeks have been marked by extraordinary tensions and lethal violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
However when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel this week, he solely reiterated Washington’s longstanding positions on the battle: an “ironclad” dedication to Israel, a name for calm, and rhetorical help for the two-state answer.
Nearly all the things that Blinken stated throughout a joint information convention with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday was drawn — at occasions verbatim — from earlier State Division statements.
George Bisharat, a professor at UC Hastings Faculty of the Regulation in San Francisco, stated the US administration views occasional eruptions of violence in Israel-Palestine as “inconveniences to be managed” whereas sustaining unconditional help for the Israeli authorities.
“From the US’ viewpoint, let’s be actual: They don’t give a rattling about Palestinian lives,” Bisharat informed Al Jazeera.
“They solely care to the extent that these flare-ups intrude with what the US perceives to be its strategic pursuits within the area, which don’t have anything to do with human rights — of anyone, not simply the Palestinians.”
‘Establishment’
Blinken’s go to comes after a Palestinian gunman on Friday fatally shot seven Israelis in occupied East Jerusalem after Israeli forces killed 10 Palestinians within the occupied West Financial institution in one of many deadliest days in current reminiscence.
Regardless of the mounting tensions, the US administration is unlikely to vary course quickly, stated Annelle Sheline, a analysis fellow on the Quincy Institute for Accountable Statecraft, a US-based assume tank.
“The Biden administration coverage in the direction of the Center East generally, and Israel particularly, is premised on sustaining the established order, and never acknowledging the ways in which the established order is shifting below their ft,” Sheline informed Al Jazeera.
“It’s gone time for a brand new strategy, however I don’t assume we’re prone to see one,” she added.
“I haven’t seen any inclination from anybody within the administration that they’re excited by attempting to strain Israel. I feel they fear concerning the optics of that.”
Though Biden promised to centre human rights in his overseas coverage when he took workplace, his administration has pushed to strengthen US help for Israel, which main rights teams have accused of imposing a system of apartheid on Palestinians.
Israel receives $3.8bn in US army assist yearly, and Biden elevated the help by $1bn final 12 months.
Criticising Israel nonetheless enacts a excessive political value within the US, consultants have identified, whereas President Joe Biden has touted his personal ideological stance as a self-proclaimed Zionist.
In the meantime, amid the Ukraine conflict, intensifying US competitors with China and a busy home agenda, Israel-Palestine is way from the highest of Biden’s priorities — a actuality that Bisharat stated cements Washington’s view of the present disaster as a minor, manageable matter.
Echoing Sheline, Bisharat stated US officers waving prospects of the two-state answer solely serves to take care of the established order of indefinite Israeli occupation by treating it as non permanent.
“It’s a distraction from folks appreciating the truth that we now have been caught on this rut of continuous, ongoing settler colonialism within the West Financial institution — and all the apartheid measures which are necessitated by it,” he stated.
No public criticism of Israel
Blinken, like different officers within the Biden administration, has been reluctant to criticise Israel publicly.
The highest US diplomat didn’t waver from that strategy on Monday, as he lauded the US-Israel alliance and highlighted Washington’s efforts to additional “combine” Israel into the Center East and strengthen its normalisation offers with Arab states.
Blinken cautioned towards strikes that will go towards the “imaginative and prescient” of the two-state answer, which he stated could be “detrimental to Israel’s long-term safety and its long-term id as a Jewish and democratic state”.
He additionally failed to supply a transparent reply when requested about punitive measures that Netanyahu’s authorities is contemplating imposing on households of Palestinians who perform assaults towards Israelis, together with deportations and residential demolitions.
“There isn’t any query that it is a very troublesome second. We’ve seen the horrific terrorist assaults in current days. We’ve seen over many months rising violence that affects so many,” Blinken stated in Cairo earlier on Monday earlier than heading to Jerusalem.
In the course of the information convention alongside Netanyahu, he paid tribute to the seven Israelis killed by the Palestinian gunman final week.
However Blinken didn’t point out the a minimum of 35 Palestinians, together with eight kids, killed by Israel this month, nor did he criticise Israeli settlements or make reference to Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, a US citizen who was fatally shot by Israeli forces final 12 months.
The US Division of State didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s request for touch upon whether or not Blinken raised Abu Akleh’s case with Israeli officers on Monday.
After many years of unquestioning US help for Israel, many Palestinian observers say they don’t anticipate Blinken’s ongoing journey to result in any change. The highest US diplomat is ready to satisfy with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday in Ramallah.
Yara Hawari, senior analyst on the Al-Shabaka coverage community, a Palestinian assume tank, known as Blinken’s go to to the area “insignificant”.
“Certainly, his go to up to now has been textbook — he reiterated the US’s unwavering help of the Israeli apartheid regime and praised the so-called particular US-Israeli relationship,” Hawari informed Al Jazeera in an e mail.
“And let’s be clear, it is a help which isn’t solely diplomatic but in addition a help that sees billions of {dollars} of bilateral assist and army help yearly.”