New York, USA: United States’ Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr has expressed deep concerns over the surge in hostilities between Palestinians and Israeli forces in Jerusalem, and urged all parties to exercise “maximum restraint” and take appropriate measures to restore calm.
Palestinians in the Shuafat refugee camp and surrounding neighborhoods of East Jerusalem have been protesting the siege of their neighborhoods following the closure of two checkpoints – the only entry and exit points from the camps – on Saturday night, and camp residents have announced a “civil disobedience movement”.
The checkpoints were closed following the killing of an Israeli Border Police officer in a shooting attack at the camp’s main checkpoint, and Israeli police and special forces are conducting raids and arrest operations to find the suspect, who they have identified as 22-year-old Uday Tamimi.
Clashes between the camp residents and raiding Israeli security forces have escalated over the last couple of days, and, according to media reports, at least two people have died: a Palestinian teenager who was shot dead by Israeli forces on Wednesday near Hebron, and an Israeli soldier who was killed in a shooting near Nablus on Tuesday.
“We are deeply, deeply concerned about the situation on the ground and particularly the human toll,” said Amr on Thursday, in a conversation with Khalil E Jahshan at the Seventh Annual Conference of the Arab Center Washington DC. “We are calling on the key parties to exercise maximum restraint and take steps to restore calm.
“It’s been a really painful last 24-48 hours and even last few weeks. In fact, the recent period has seen a sharp and alarming increase in both Palestinian and Israeli deaths and injuries, including numerous children.
‘Painful’ year for Israel and Palestinians
“As of yesterday, in 2022, the year has seen more than 24 Israeli deaths and 150 Palestinians killed by Israelis, including 111 in the West Bank, 35 in Gaza and three in Israel. Measured by those data points, it’s really been one of the more painful years in a long time, and we feel it is absolutely vital for the parties that have power on the ground to take action to prevent an even greater loss of life.”
Amr, who had previously served at the State Department from 2013-2017 on Secretary of State John Kerry’s team working on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, said the Biden administration is, “day in and day out, week in and week out, and even in the minutes before this discussion began, actively engaged with Israeli and Palestinian counterparts to urge them to work cooperatively to lower tensions and discourage armed conflict, and specifically urging Israel to ensure its policy and procedures do not lead to civilian harm”.
Amr also reiterated the Biden administration’s commitment to rebuilding bilateral relationship with the Palestinian people and to a two-state solution.
“We also remain committed, as the President has said numerous times – just to quote what he said in Bethlehem standing next to President Mahmoud Abbas, in this regard: ‘The Palestinian people deserve a state of their own that’s independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous’ – two states for two people who have a deep and ancient commitment to the land, living side by side in peace and security, both peoples enjoying equal measures of freedom and dignity.”
‘Palestinians don’t trust US’
President Biden’s outreach, however, has not convinced many Palestinians. A recent survey found more than 61 percent of Palestinians did not trust the US, but a more damning assessment was delivered by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Kazakhstan on Thursday following his meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin at the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
“We don’t trust America and you know our position,” Abbas was quoted as telling Putin. “We don’t trust it, we don’t rely on it, and under no circumstances can we accept that America is the sole party in resolving a problem. It can be within the Quartet [of international mediators in the Israel-Palestine conflict, which includes Russia, the United States, the United Nations and the European Union] since it is a great country, but we will never accept it as the only one.”
Addressing Palestinian concerns, Amr said: “Palestinian frustration at the lack of tangible progress is understandable and the administration will continue to look for ways to advance and explore building a political horizon to move in that direction.
“While we hope to see bold moves, we know it’s not always in the cards. So we’ve been engaging with the government of Israel, we’ve been engaging with the Palestinian Authority, and we’ve been engaging with civil society to try to advance the situation.
“But look, while a negotiated solution is maybe difficult to imagine today or tomorrow, we are still working as best we can to make tangible improvements in the everyday lives of both Palestinians and Israelis to lay the groundwork for a future resolution.
Economic upliftment plan
“We know that half of the people in the Holy Land are Jewish the other half are Palestinian. We also know that on the one hand Israel has seen remarkable success with its per capita GDP at about $44,000 a year at the levels of France, Japan, the UK and Canada, the per capita GDP in the West Bank is 1/10th of that and in Gaza 1/20th, where unemployment is just about as high as any country on earth. We know this is an untenable situation that we are hoping to address.
“So that’s why when the President came into office, we kind of shifted US policy to start addressing that. Our economic assistance to the Palestinian people has been at about $800 million since the administration started, the vast majority of that going to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine Refugees, over 600 million.
“We also restarted our economic assistance on the ground in the West Bank, in Gaza, and when the President was just down in Jerusalem, [he] announced $100 million to support the Eastern Jerusalem hospital network.
“We’ve also engaged with the government of Israel to take steps to improve the lives of the Palestinian people in numerous ways, which have included 40 percent more water going to Gaza; legalizing the status of many, many thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank so that they have legal status there; well over 10,000 work permits for Palestinians from Gaza to work in Israel, the highest number in 15 years, and so on.”
President Biden’s vision
When reminded by the host that these economic inducements are irrelevant given the reality of the Palestinian people under siege and occupation, Amr said: “President Biden has been absolutely committed to rebuilding a political horizon, to reasserting the importance of a two-state solution along the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, to what I think is a powerful moral commitment that Israelis and Palestinians – and let’s focus on the words – equally deserve to live safely and securely, and enjoy equal measures of freedom, security and prosperity.
“That’s a very American statement and it’s essentially committing the United States of America to the political vision that Israelis and Palestinians should live lives along those lines. We are not forgetting one thing and focusing on the other. We are asserting, from the voice of the President of the United States himself, that the Palestinian people deserve a state that is independent, sovereign, viable and contiguous.
“So that’s what we’re working on. While we’re working on that though, and pushing for that, the President believes, the Secretary of State believes, and I personally believe, as somebody who cares deeply about the quality of every human life as it exists day to day, that we should be doing what we can to lift up every single life – to make it richer, better, more healthy, more prosperous, more free, and more effective.
“And so that’s what we’re doing. That’s why we have, kind of, dedicated our economic resources to lifting Palestinian lives, to make them stronger. We’ve engaged on the ground to try to make Palestinian lives more free, more secure. Obviously, we’d like to see more success, but that’s what we’re doing. It’s not one over the other. It’s both.
“Clearly the situation on the ground is very difficult right now from a security standpoint and we are working to address that in numerous phone calls and conversations that have taken place over the last 24 hours.
“At the same time, that doesn’t mean we stop pushing on ways to improve freedom of movement for the Palestinian people and advance other issues. It’s not A or B, it’s always both and we’re always pushing on dozens of issues that we’re trying to address.”