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UNITED NATIONS (PA) – The administration of US President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that it is restoring relations with the Palestinians and renewing aid to Palestinian refugees, a reversal of the Trump administration’s cutoff and a key part of its renewed support for a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
Acting US Ambassador Richard Mills announced Biden’s approach to a high-level Security Council meeting, saying the new US administration believes this “remains the best way to secure the future of” Israel as a democratic and Jewish state while supporting the legitimate aspirations of the Palestinians to a state of their own and to live in dignity and security. “
President Donald Trump’s administration has provided unprecedented support to Israel, recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, moving the US embassy to Tel Aviv, cutting financial aid to the Palestinians and reversing the illegitimacy of the Israeli settlements on land claimed by Palestinians.
Israel captured East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 war. The international community considers both areas to be occupied territories and the Palestinians seek them as parts of a future independent state. Israel has built a vast network of settlements that are home to nearly 700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem since their capture in 1967.
The peace plan unveiled by Trump a year ago contemplates a disjointed Palestinian state that cedes key parts of the West Bank to Israel, siding with Israel on key contentious issues, including borders and the status of Jerusalem and Jewish settlements. He was vehemently rejected by the Palestinians.
Mills made clear the Biden administration’s more impartial approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“Under the new administration, the policy of the United States will be to support a mutually agreed two-state solution, in which Israel lives in peace and security alongside a viable Palestinian state,” he said. -he declares.
Mills said peace cannot be imposed on both sides and stressed that progress and an ultimate solution require the participation and agreement of both Israelis and Palestinians.
“In order to advance these goals, the Biden administration will restore credible US engagement with the Palestinians and the Israelis,” he said.
“This will involve renewing US relations with the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian people,” Mills said.
“President Biden has made it clear that he intends to restore US assistance programs that support economic development programs and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people, and to take steps to reopen diplomatic ties that have been closed by the last US administration. ” Mills said.
Trump halted funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency known as UNRWA, which was established to help the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced to leave their homes during the war surrounding the establishment in 1948. It provides education, health care, food and other assistance to some 5.5 million refugees and their descendants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as well as in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The United States was UNRWA’s largest donor and the loss of funds created a financial crisis for the agency.
The Trump administration closed the Palestine Liberation Organization office in Washington in September 2018, effectively shutting down the Palestinian diplomatic mission in the United States.
Mills said the United States hopes to start working to slowly build trust on both sides to create an environment conducive to a two-state solution.
To achieve this goal, Mills said, “The United States will urge the Israeli government and the Palestinians to avoid unilateral measures that make a two-state solution more difficult, such as annexation of territory, settlement activities, demolitions. , incitement to violence, compensation for persons imprisoned for acts of terrorism. “
Israel accused the Palestinians of inciting violence and vehemently opposed the Palestinian Authority paying the families of those imprisoned for attacking or killing Israelis.
Mills stressed that “the United States will maintain its unwavering support for Israel” – opposing unilateral resolutions and other actions in international bodies that unfairly distinguish Israel and promote Israel’s position and participation in it. UN and other international organizations.
The Biden administration welcomes the recent normalization of relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries and will urge other countries to establish ties, Mills said.
“Yet we recognize that Arab-Israeli normalization is not a substitute for Israeli-Palestinian peace,” he said.
Mills pointed out that the tense state of Israeli-Palestinian politics and the fact that trust between the two parties “is at its lowest” does not relieve UN member countries “of the responsibility of trying to preserve viability of a two-state state. Solution.”
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