While the results of the midterm elections of the United States have been deemed an achievement by President Joe Biden, no change in U.S. foreign policy is expected especially when it comes to the Israel-Palestine conflict and the administration’s continuous support for Israel.

Judging by the pace of Biden’s "America is back" mantra, the Biden administration’s failure to devise a balanced approach to Palestinian-Israeli peace and quickly respond to Israeli practices against Palestinians under occupation threatens its claim as "a defender of rights" and "a decisive international player."

Such a failure could also be seen as a harbinger of leaving the fate of the Palestinians to the whims and dreams of Israel’s right-wing government and its extremist supporters. Still, it is good that the Biden administration has left alone serious illegal decisions by the former Trump administration that abrogate Palestinian civil and national rights and open the door to Israel’s appropriation and annexation of more Palestinian land. Even domestically, the administration has gone along with laws that restrict the freedom of expression of activists, journalists, academics and others exercising their right to criticize Israel.

Under former U.S. President Donald Trump, the U.S. administration recognized all of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, relocating its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and shutting the U.S. Consulate to Palestinians in Jerusalem. It also closed down the Palestinian Representative Office in Washington, D.C., cut financial support to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the 1967-occupied Syrian Golan Heights.

In his presidential campaign in 2020, Biden pledged to pursue a foreign policy that would be centered on human rights. He promised to act immediately to reopen the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem and work to reopen the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mission in Washington, to restore economic and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people, including assistance to the UNRWA, and address the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

To date, Biden failed to reverse most of his predecessor’s decisions and managed only to partially restore financial aid to the PA and UNRWA. Furthermore, Biden made it clear he had no plans to reverse Trump’s controversial move of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which infuriated Palestinians, as they see East Jerusalem as the capital of the future Palestinian state.

On the other hand, the Biden administration did not appear to be concerned about the creeping annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank and the increased buildup of settlements in and around Jerusalem.

The peace process

Along with subsequent statements by Biden, little hope was raised among certain analysts that Biden would indeed transform his long-term commitment to the two-state solution into a political initiative to reinvigorate the Israeli-Palestinian peace dialogue, which has been frozen since 2014.

Last July, Biden kicked off his first presidential trip to the Middle East, with an initial stop in Israel and occupied Palestine, before traveling to Saudi Arabia for a regional summit.

Following two days of high-level meetings with Israeli officials, Biden reaffirmed his commitment to Israel's security and with former Prime Minister Yair Lapid he signed a statement in Jerusalem, whereby the U.S. pledged its commitment "never to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon."

The following day, Biden met in Bethlehem with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and pledged to keep up efforts to support a just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even though the goal of a two-state solution appeared far off.

"Even if the ground is not right at this moment to restart negotiations, the United States and my administration will not give up on trying to bring the Palestinians, Israelis and both sides closer together," Biden said.

"There must be a political horizon that the Palestinian people can actually see or at least feel. We cannot allow hopelessness to steal away the future," he added.

Biden’s remarks were likely to disappoint the Palestinians, who were looking to the U.S. to press Israel into restarting peace talks.

Meanwhile, Abbas said "the key to peace" in the region "begins with ending the Israeli occupation of our land."

To Israelis, Biden’s visit was a source of celebration; the arrival of a self-declared Zionist, one of its oldest and staunchest friends, and now a standard-bearer for Israel’s integration within the Middle East. "A visit that moved our entire country," said Lapid as Biden departed.

The White House has listed the two-state solution in the Israel-Palestine conflict as one of its priorities in the Biden administration’s recently unveiled 2022 national security strategy. The document stated that the U.S. will continue to promote a viable two-state solution that "preserves Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state while meeting Palestinian aspirations for a secure and viable state of their own." Continued advocacy for a two-state solution comes as part of a plan to "support de-escalation and integration" in the Middle East.

While Lapid seemed to back the two-state solution at the United Nations in September, Israel’s population remains largely opposed to such a move, with a recent poll finding only 32% of Israelis demonstrating support.

"An agreement with the Palestinians, based on two states for two peoples, is the right thing for Israel’s security, for Israel’s economy, and for the future of our children," Lapid told delegates in a speech to the 77th U.N. General Assembly. The national security strategy includes a commitment to facilitate Israel’s ties to its neighbors and other Arab states via the Abraham Accords that were signed under Trump.

The joint normalization deals currently include Morocco, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The strategy reiterates Biden's statement in the occupied West Bank in July 2022: "Two states along the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed swaps, remain the best way to achieve an equal measure of security, prosperity, freedom, and democracy for Palestinians as well as Israelis." The document does not provide a road map for negotiations for the two-state solution and there are currently no efforts in motion.

The peace process has been frozen for years now, and it is unlikely that Biden will put much political capital into reviving it in the remaining years of his presidency even if Democrats have retained control of the Senate and the Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives.

*Palestinian author, researcher and freelance journalist; recipient of two prizes from the Palestinian Union of Writers