Biden reverting to outdated US approach on Israel-Palestine, HRW chief says

US President Joe Biden has been "pressing ‘rewind' and 'play'" on American foreign policy relating to Palestine and Israel, the head of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Friday.

HRW Executive Director Kenneth Roth criticised Biden’s lukewarm response to Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and the recent spate of forced expulsions in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah.

“Much of what Biden said about the conflict would have sounded familiar from US presidents of decades past," Roth wrote in a Newsweek op-ed.

“But time has not stood still. The Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has deepened its oppressive, discriminatory rule of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem—a trend that was only accelerated by former President Donald Trump's unconditional embrace of Netanyahu.”

Opinion: "The PA was neither able to physically stop Israel nor gather sufficient international momentum to hold Israel accountable", says Dr Emad Moussa https://t.co/beHLQwfQh0

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) May 28, 2021

On Thursday, a top UN human rights body passed a resolution aimed at intensifying scrutiny of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians after the UN rights chief said Israeli forces may have committed war crimes in its 11-day bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave, which killed more than 250 Palestinians, including 66 children,

The 24-9 vote, with 14 abstentions, capped a special Human Rights Council session on the rights crisis faced by Palestinians. The session and the resolution were arranged by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation countries.

As Israel carried out its assault earlier this month, Biden initially released a statement reiterating America’s support for Israel’s "right to defend itself", without acknowledging the deaths in Gaza, the disproportionate deaths of children and young people, Israeli forces’ escalation of violence in the Al Aqsa compound and the Sheikh Jarrah expulsions.

Amid mounting pressure to speak on Palestinians, he eventually called on Israel to stop "inter-communal fighting" in Jerusalem and repeated the US’s commitment to a two-state solution.

The idea of a two-state solution - with a sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel and Jerusalem as their shared capital - has been the cornerstone of decades of international diplomacy aimed at ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Former US President Donald Trump was criticised as further undermining a two-state solution by recognising Israel's claim over Jerusalem as its capital and moving the US embassy there.

A Middle East peace plan devised by Trump's adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was billed as providing for a two-state solution, however envisioned a Palestinian state with only limited sovereignty and Israel maintaining security over that state.

The plan was rejected out of hand by Palestinian leaders.