“Palestinians and Israelis deserve equal measures of freedom, security, prosperity and dignity,” President Joe Biden said.
President Joe Biden meets Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, West Bank on July 15, 2022. President Joe Biden acknowledged Friday that an independent state for Palestinians "can seem so far away" as he confronted hopelessness about the stagnant peace process during a visit to the West Bank.
Abbas, in his own remarks, said it was time to "turn the page on the Israeli occupation on our land." He also said Israel "cannot continue to act as a state above law." When Biden finished speaking at the hospital, a woman who identified herself as a pediatric nurse at another healthcare facility thanked him for the financial assistance but said "we need more justice, more dignity."
Meanwhile, the 86-year-old Abbas, whose Palestinian Authority administers parts of the occupied West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security, is more representative of the status quo than Palestinian aspirations. Hours before Biden was set to become the first U.S. leader to fly directly from Israel to the kingdom, Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation announced early Friday "the decision to open the Kingdom’s airspace for all air carriers that meet the requirements of the Authority for overflying."
It all reeked of hypocrisy to Palestinians, who have endured 55 years of military occupation with no end in sight. At this point, the Palestinian goal of an independent state in east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza — territories Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war — appears more distant than ever.
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