The United States is asking for another Israeli goodwill gesture to the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of President Joe Biden’s planned visit next month.
The US asked Israel to allow the “symbolic presence” of Palestinian Authority officials at the Allenby land crossing between Israel and Jordan, according to Axios reporter Barak Ravid.
Such a move would “symbolically” also confer an implication of sovereignty for the Palestinian Authority, and ‘cancel’ Israeli sovereignty at the site.
Nevertheless, Israel is reportedly considering acquiescing to this request, according to Ravid.
In addition, the US has reportedly asked Israel to refrain from actions in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem that could create tensions ahead of the visit, four Israeli, US and PA officials told Ravid.
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf and her deputy for Israeli-PA affairs, Hady Amr both shuttled three times this week between Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Leaf was told in Ramallah the Palestinian Authority expects Israel and the US to present “some kind of a political horizon” for its citizens.
Ravid quoted Hussein al-Sheikh, a PLO official and adviser to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, as saying the US “wants the visit to take place in a good atmosphere – different than the one now… If the Israel’s don’t stop their unilateral action the situation deteriorates and becomes much worse.”
Leaf has asked Israel to stop home demolitions, evictions of Arab squatters from IDF firing zones and other illegal living situations, and “settlement building” decisions in Judea and Samaria, at least until after Biden’s visit.
“The Biden administration doesn’t want us to create any crisis in the West Bank. . .They want quiet and calm” for Biden’s visit, a senior Israeli official told Ravid.
It is important to note the PA and US definition of “settlement building” includes such innocuous actions as allowing a Jewish family to add a room, raise a roof, build a pergola or even repair a driveway at their home, in a Judea or Samaria community.
Aside from the implications such moves would convey, any one of those actions would ram the final nail into the coffin of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government, which is barely holding itself together right now as it is.
