The 13-15 July visit of US president Joe Biden to occupied Palestine sparked the anger of Palestinians, suffering under economic sanctions and constant murderous rampages by Israeli occupiers. After pledging to continue the unbroken line of military sponsorship of the Zionist regime, and throwing a few crumbs to the reactionary Palestinian Authority (PA), Biden hot-footed it to Saudi Arabia for a conference seen as the dawn of an ‘Arab NATO,’ or a US-backed alliance against the forces of resistance. Both legs of this tour were designed to bolster support for imperialist war on Iran. As in earlier periods where Zionism and Arab reaction spearheaded imperialist attacks on the poor, occupied and dispossessed, Palestinians remain at the forefront of resistance.
This was Biden’s first trip to the Zionist state as US president but the tenth in his political career. Speaking on Israeli TV, he admitted this was ‘kind of like going home’. During a 13 July speech at Ben Gurion Airport, Biden spoke of his early career ‘privilege’ in coming to meet Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in 1973. She had infamously claimed that the Palestinians ‘didn’t exist’. Spuriously heralding the ‘ancient roots’ of Israel, Biden affirmed that ‘you need not be a Jew to be a Zionist… as president, I’m proud to say that our relationship with the State of Israel is deeper and stronger, in my view, than it’s ever been.’ In return, Zionist prime minister Yair Lapid called Biden ‘one of the best friends Israel has ever known.’ That their joint declaration took place in occupied Jerusalem served to rubber-stamp the encroaching Zionist conquest of the city.
Lapid’s words were a recognition of Biden’s role in the Obama government, which had boosted ‘aid’ to Israel – including a $38bn military pact in 2016, which the US State Department called the ‘single largest pledge of bilateral military assistance in US history’. During the May 2021 bombing of Gaza and brutal repression of the uprising across historic Palestine, and shortly after Biden’s replacement of Donald Trump as president, the US government approved the sale of $735m in precision-guided weapons to the Zionist state. For 2022, the White House earmarked $3.3bn in military aid, $500m in ‘missile defence aid,’ and requested $5m in ‘humanitarian funding’ to assist new Zionist settlements. These figures make a mockery of the reported $316m in US aid announced ahead of Biden’s meeting with PA president Mahmoud Abbas – largely a restoration of Trump’s aid cuts to UNRWA and the PA.
During their press conference in Bethlehem on 15 July, Abbas thanked Biden for continuing to support the (defunct) ‘two-state solution’ and said, ‘I extend my hand to the leaders of Israel to make peace.’ Once again, the Palestinian rich pin their hopes on a negotiated, neo-colonial settlement. Hamas denounced the PA’s attempt to ‘beautify’ the imperialist visit, while a statement by Palestinian prisoner support group Samidoun highlighted PA collaboration ‘as a security subcontractor for the Israeli occupation, with training and funding for these security forces provided by the United States.’
The weekend before Biden’s visit, Abbas welcomed Zionist Defence Minister Benny Gantz to talks in Ramallah for the third time in a year and spoke directly to both Lapid and Israeli president Isaac Herzog. The stated aim of the discussions was to ‘ensure quiet and calm’ – or, rather, to stamp out any Palestinian opposition to the tour. Journalists at the Biden-Abbas press conference were banned from speaking. In East Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Palestinians took to the streets in anger at Biden’s visit, holding banners reading ‘you are not welcome in Palestine,’ alongside images of murdered Al Jazeera correspondent Shireen Abu Akleh, who was a US citizen. Abbas had embraced US custodianship of the ‘investigation’ into her assassination, which so far has totally covered up Israel’s murderous role.
The real agenda of Biden’s trip was to foster even deeper Arab bourgeois normalisation with the Zionist state, as part and parcel of forming a US imperialist-sponsored alliance of reaction against Iran. Israeli officials revealed that the two countries were working on a ‘Jerusalem Declaration’ to unify US imperialist and Zionist aims: ‘a very clear and united stand against Iran, its nuclear program and its aggression across the region and commits both countries to using all elements of their national power against the Iranian nuclear threat.’
The Zionist and Saudi regimes are seen as the two most loyal allies of US imperialism in the region and the US ruling class is working to deepen collaboration between the two. The UAE, co-conspirator in the brutal assault on Yemen, is high on the list of Arab reactionary forces to have openly normalised relations with Israel; Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan have followed suit. Biden admitted that fostering open Israel-Saudi relations is ‘going to take a long time… But increasing the relationship in terms of the acceptance of each other’s presence, the working together on certain things – it all makes sense to me.’ The 16 July Security and Development Summit of US-allied Arab states in Jeddah specifically targeted Iran and ‘terrorism’ in the region. Despite pledging support, Abbas was denied a request to visit Saudi Arabia in the run-up to the conference, again showing the futility of the Palestinian ‘leadership.’
Protesters against the Biden-Abbas meeting in Bethlehem came from the nearby Dheisheh refugee camp, where home invasions, arrests, shootings and killings at the hands of Zionist forces have continued daily. Refugees took to the streets in defiance of the 1,500 occupation troops deployed around the camp to stamp out their opposition. Gaza was again bombed by Israeli warplanes on 17 July. The Wall Street Journal reported on 16 June that Israel routinely seeks US approval for its bombings of Syria, of which there have been over 400 since 2017. Opposing the Jeddah summit, a coalition of Egyptian and Palestinian solidarity groups meeting in Cairo on 18 July denounced moves towards an ‘Arab NATO’ and called for anti-imperialist unity. In the broader context of US-led sanctions and aggression against Iran and Russia, Palestinian activist Jaldia Abubakra of the Masar Badil (Alternative Revolutionary Path) called for an ‘Arab and international alliance to support the Palestinian resistance and confront normalisation and imperialism, spearheaded by the NATO alliance headed by the United States.’
Louis Brehony
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 289 August/September 2022
