Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden visited the U.S. Department of State to discuss his foreign policy vision. “Diplomacy is back,” he declared, explaining, “Investing in our diplomacy isn’t something we do just because it’s the right thing to do for the world. We do it in order to live in peace, security, and prosperity. We do it because it’s in our own naked self-interest. When we strengthen our alliances, we amplify our power as well as our ability to disrupt threats before they can reach our shores.” That diplomacy was back became his administration’s mantra, repeated by National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
The sloganeering was a bit unfair—after all, the Trump team negotiated more Arab-Israeli peace agreements than the preceding 12 presidents combined—but it played to Inside-the-Beltway elites. Today, however, Biden may do more to erode permanently the value of American diplomacy than Trump or any predecessor in U.S. history.
In their confusion between leadership and virtue signaling, the Biden administration now hints that the United States could unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. That such a move would reward terrorism is obvious, though Biden has a record of allowing personal animus toward foreign leaders like then-Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and India Prime Minister Narendra Modi trump broader U.S. national security interests and erode alliances.
Biden’s threat to recognize a Palestinian state derives from his personal dislike of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu can exasperate even his close friends, but rather than cultivate Biden’s anger to push an agenda of immediate Palestinian independence with which Biden’s closest aides agree, a more responsible staff would consider the impact such policy would have on the future of American diplomacy.
The foundation of diplomacy is agreements span administrations. The 1993 Oslo Accords committed the Palestinians to recognize Israel’s right to exist and foreswear terrorism as a prerequisite to establishment of the Palestinian Authority; they did not expire when President Bill Clinton left office, no matter how unwise President George W. Bush’s team may have believed them.
The core of the Oslo Accords was that Palestinians and Israel would negotiate final status issues prior to independence, and that the Palestinians could not make an end run by taking their case to international organizations to win independence. Mahmoud Abbas, who personally signed the Oslo Accords’ Declaration of Principles, violated his word and sought to go outside the framework. While other states recognized Palestinian independence, the United States did not. After all, no president was willing to abrogate unilaterally an agreement that the United States helped negotiate.
That Biden now considers doing just that signifies disdain for diplomacy with ramifications beyond the Middle East. Already, the United States’ non-enforcement of the 29 February 2020 agreement creates uncertainty about whether American promises are sincere and meaningful. So too did the violation by former Hotel Rwanda hotelier Paul Rusesabagina of a deal Sullivan brokered with the Rwandan government to set aside his terrorism sentence. As Blinken and Sullivan pressure democratic Armenia to make concessions under fire to dictatorial Azerbaijan to win a peace deal, this leads Armenians to question the value of any U.S. guarantee they offer.
Should the United States recognize an independent Palestinian state absent the requirement that it accept Israel and abandon terror, it would usher in chaos. The new state would fail quicker than South Sudan or Somalia. Iran and Turkey would flood it with men and material, guaranteeing further war; it would be a launch pad to export instability throughout the region.
Future diplomats would scramble to put out the fires Biden’s team started but, unlike past conflicts, the United States would forfeit all diplomatic standing. Why engage American diplomats, after all, if their agreements mean nothing? Biden may repeat, “diplomacy is back” but his true philosophy is more “l’état, c’est moi.”
