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Overwhelmed by Trump’s political gifts, Benjamin Netanyahu has been helped to win the election. With Joe Biden, expect another relationship between the United States and Israel. – The honeymoon is over, analyst Aaron David Miller tells TT.
Two close allies: US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting in Jerusalem in 2017.
“Under Trump, the United States has overwhelmed Israel with a series of landmark decisions and has asked very little in return,” says Aaron David Miller, affiliated with the think tank Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
– For Trump, it has been a way to secure political support. It has also been about vanity, being the American president who has made decisions that no one has made before.
Trump has given his support to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and moved the US embassy there. Furthermore, aid to the UN body for Palestinian refugees froze and attempts were made in vain to push the Palestinians into a peace agreement in which the Israelis emerged as the biggest winners.
With the help of the United States, Israel has also agreed to normalize relations with the Arab states of Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Sudan, even if it is not just a merit of Trump, but something that was at least in part already in march before.
“All of this has been a huge political boost for Netanyahu, who is under heavy pressure at home,” said Miller, who has previously been a Middle East negotiator for several US governments.
In January, the corruption trial against Netanyahu is expected to continue. But even now he is awash in criticism for his handling of the pandemic and the fact that more than a million Israelis are unemployed. Protests are organized almost daily.
– There is a general dissatisfaction. But everything Trump has done has helped Netanyahu become indispensable in the relationship between Israel and the United States, Miller says.
– But Trump has weakened America’s reputation abroad and thereby weakened Israel. Biden will be better for Israel in terms of broader American support for the Jewish state, with a foreign policy that will benefit Israel’s security.
Because while Netanyahu has described his American colleague as the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House, there are many who are not so positive. Some believe that the strained relationship with Iran, the decision to withdraw the United States from the nuclear deal, and the wounded relationship with the Palestinians have, above all, damaged security.
– Certainly, there is a fairly broad consensus in Israel on the Iran deal, where the military establishment agrees in part with Netanyahu on Iran and the possibility that they would continue to develop alleged nuclear weapons, says Isabell Schierenbeck, professor of political science at the Gothenburg University.
But then there are the opposition military and political strategists who believe that it has not been positive for Israel when the Israel-Palestine issue has not been on the agenda. That to create security, there must be some form of ongoing talks with the Palestinians.
Israel and the United States are longtime allies, and their cooperation is a strategic asset for both sides. And some of Trump’s political gifts to Netanyahu will likely survive the shift in power. But Biden will probably not be as accommodating to the sensitive issues of the Palestinians, Israeli settlements and relations with Tehran. He has said he wants to re-enter the nuclear deal, which could cause tensions in US-Israeli relations.
In terms of the people on Biden’s foreign policy team, he is likely to expect an American line that is more compatible with the center-right than the right flank in Israeli politics, according to Schierenbeck. He does not believe that Biden will move the embassy back to Tel Aviv, but he will likely resume aid to the Palestinians through the UN.
– Biden is clearer for a two-state solution. His government will undoubtedly try to resume talks, even if the signs are not so hopeful, says Schierenbeck.
– US-Israel relations will go back to being more than they were before Trump. But they will not be as cold as between Barack Obama and Netanyahu, but better than that.
Some of the Trump administration’s decisions regarding Israel
These are some of the decisions that were made during the term of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and his administration, that have affected Israel in one way or another.
* Recognized Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and moved the United States Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
* It has supported Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and settlements on occupied Palestinian lands, which is contrary to international law.
* Freeze aid to the United Nations High Commissioner for Palestine (UNRWA).
* Withdrew the United States from the JCPOA international nuclear energy agreement with Iran, Israel’s arch enemy.
* Recognized Israeli supremacy over the Golan Heights.
* Driven by the so-called Abraham accords on normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan.
* The office of the Palestinian umbrella organization PLO in Washington DC closed.
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