Why is the U.S. government insisting upon reopening a U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem? The goal is to ram a two-state solution down the throats of the Israelis.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday the Biden administration intends to press ahead with its plan to reopen the Jerusalem consulate that traditionally engaged with Palestinians, despite Israeli opposition to such a move. -- Reuters

Imagine, if you will, that the U.S. government wanted to open a consulate to the French. Would they open it in Berlin? Of course, not! Yet, the Biden administration wants to locate this diplomatic insult in Jerusalem.

Of course, Israel claims all of Jerusalem and does not want to host a consulate to the Palestinians in its capital city. The Palestinians, however, do not recognize Israeli sovereignty; and the Biden administration’s actions are just what they want. Under Trump, the Palestinian Authority had been reduced to life support. It was dying. Biden has revived it.

The consulate will be of no use to most Palestinians, mind you. Most Palestinians do not have access to Jerusalem due to Israeli security concerns. And, even if Israel allows the consulate to reopen, they could refuse to allow entrance to Palestinians from Areas A and B in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) who seek to go to the consulate… thus making the consulate pointless, and ironically, giving the Biden administration a slap in the face right back.

It would be much easier on the Palestinians to put the consulate in Ramallah in the Palestinian territories where access could be unimpeded. It would also have the advantage of being next to the administrative center of the Palestinian Authority.

But helping the Palestinians is not the consulate’s purpose. Its purpose is to force a two-state solution on Israel.

Ironically, the Trump administration, though very friendly to Israel, never officially recognized the Israeli reunification (annexation) of Jerusalem. Trump darted around the issue.

[President Trump], at the same time, says that the borders of Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem are yet to be determined. This being the case, how is it that those on the Trump Train remain gleeful? What right does anyone have to say that our capital, our holy city, is negotiable? -- Jewish Press (2017)

Maybe Trump was moving slowly when he moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, and he probably did not want to go too far all at once. There was a fear of an Arab reaction to the move… and recognition of a united Jerusalem might have been deemed potentially explosive. Some Zionist advocates were upset that Trump did not go all the way.

To be fair, the peace plan proffered by the Trump Administration in 2020 only offered the Palestinians a very limited autonomy -- not an independent state, by any means -- in exchange for financial help. So while Donald Trump may not have outwardly declared for a united Jerusalem, he all but did so.

At the end of the Trump administration, the matter was effectively settled in Israel’s favor. And Arab nations were signing on to the Abraham accords. The Mideast was moving beyond the Palestinian issue.

Yet, the Biden Administration wants to undo this. They want to go back to the Obama administration’s dream of a divided Holy Land and a divided Jerusalem. And the best way to do that is to reopen a U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which by its mere presence would give official sanction to a Palestinian claim to the eastern half of the city -- the holy part, the one that matters.

What better way to stick the thumb in the nose of the Israelis, for that can be such a consulate’s only purpose? It is not there for the Palestinians, as most of them will not be able to access it.

Ah! But what about the Palestinians who live in the eastern side of Jerusalem, the ones who have a residence in the city. Wouldn’t a consulate serve them?

They could be easily served by a Palestinian desk (that’s all) in the present U.S. Jerusalem embassy.

There is no need for this consulate -- unless the goal is to destabilize and harm Israel. And frankly, that has always been the goal of the State Department. It has always been a den of Arabist sympathizers. This didn’t start with Obama.

In 1947, the State Department actively tried to thwart Truman’s orders in favor of Zionism, even going so far as to vote opposite to his instructions in the United Nations.

Officials in the State Department had done every­thing in their power to prevent, thwart, or delay the President’s Palestine policy in 1947 and 1948. Watching them find various ways to avoid carrying out White House instructions, I sometimes felt they preferred to follow the views of the British Foreign Office rather than those of their President. -- JCPA

The reason the State Department gave at that time was to appease Arab hostility to the creation of Israel, in order to secure American access to Mideast oil.

But that issue has evaporated now that America has become oil independent. The real truth is that the State Department has a deep state contingent that has always been hostile to Israel.

So Biden’s demand for a Palestinian consulate in Jerusalem is nothing new. It is more of the same old same old. The deep state contingent was never friendly to Israel.

Indeed, this hostility to Israel is so consistent that the only variable is the Presidential administration and whether it has the will to contain it. Trump did. In fact, Donald Trump must have driven them crazy. However, his failure to officially recognize a united Jerusalem was indeed a slip-up: a costly slip-up, which the Biden administration is using to wreak more havoc.

The world sees U.S. actions in the Mideast, and in the UN, and wrongly concludes that the U.S. government is Israel friendly. Indeed, we are called Israeli lapdogs.

Rather, what really happened is that Presidential administrations -- which have to answer to a pro-Zionist American public -- have either overridden or contained the deep state Arabists in Foggy Bottom. Broad public support for Israel forced administrations to do so. But the Deep State was always there, like a rabid dog waiting to get let out of the basement.

And boy was that dog happy when Obama was in office.  He gave them a much bigger leash, and they were chomping at the bit. No one expected Trump to win in 2016.

There can be no doubt that Obama and the State Department Arabists are trying to sabotage Israel once again. With Biden in office, they see their chance.

No good can come of this. If Israel is smart, they will not allow it.

Mike Konrad is the pen name of a writer who wishes he had paid more attention in his Spanish class, lo those many decades ago.

Image: Pixabay

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