That the US is weighing a "restart" of its relations with the Palestinians – including by reopening the Palestine Liberation Organization's mission in the Washingon – says a lot about what lies ahead when it comes to American foreign policy in the region.
The leaked memo that was given to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was first reported by the UAE daily The National. It's called The US Palestinian Reset and the Path Forward, and it outlines the possible measures in which the US could bring back the Palestinians to a bilateral dialogue with Washington, which was cut off by Ramallah right after the Trump administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital in 2017.
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"As we reset US relations with the Palestinians, the Palestinian body politic is at an inflection point as it moves towards its first elections in 15 years," it says according to the National.
"At the same time, we [the US] suffer from a lack of connective tissue following the 2018 closure of the PLO office in Washington and refusal of Palestinian Authority leadership to directly engage with our embassy to Israel," the memo says.
Why did Washington go out of its way to leak this document to a UAE paper and why did it do it at this point in time?
Perhaps the answer to the first question is that it wants the UAE to be on board with its regional efforts, including on Iran, or at least not to join Israel by actively trying to prevent the US's return to the 2015 deal. It wants to keep the UAE close.
The answer to the second question is perhaps the biggest mystery, as it does not help rebuild trust with Israel. This memo, if it gets put into action, will only add more suspicion in Jerusalem toward the Biden administration and its apparent determination to abandon the tough approach against Israel's adversaries.
Israel wants the White House to continue with the Trump administration's unrelenting efforts to pressure the Palestinians to end the stipends to the terrorists, its punitive measures over the incitement against Israel (including allegedly in UN-backed schools), and its insistence that the Palestinians must never engage in anti-Israel activity at the International Criminal Court. All this is now at stake if the Palestinians are courted by Washington.
It's unclear what the Biden administration thinks this will accomplish in terms of moving the peace process forward. Previous administrations have tried and failed to get the Palestinians to dramatically change their behavior without direct pressure. Is this a trial balloon to gauge Israel's reaction? Or was it, perhaps, a rogue leak by someone within the Biden administration who wants to box in the administration?
Regardless of the motives, it seems that the Biden administration is very keen on testing the waters, less than a week before Israelis go to the polls. Israelis' view on the Palestinians and the peace process as a whole is hardly an election issue (even the Abraham Accords struck with four Arab countries have not been a campaign game-changer).
Whether or not the State Department goes on to implement this memo, one thing is clear: Biden wants Israel's concerns to be on the back burner, or at best on the same level as the Palestinians'.
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