A spike in Israeli-Palestinian violence and sharp responses by both sides are testing the Biden administration as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Israel and the West Bank this week.
The violence has made January one of the bloodiest months in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem in several years. While Blinken’s trip has been planned for several weeks and will follow visits by President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and CIA Director Willian Burns, it will be the highest-level U.S. engagement with Netanyahu since he retook power last month and the first since the surge in violence.
“We want to get the parties to not cease security cooperation but to really enhance the security coordination,” said Barbara Leaf, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East. “We are urging de-escalation and a calming of the situation.” Easing strains on those issues, or at least averting new ones, are central to Blinken’s mission despite Netanyahu’s opposition to two of Biden’s main Mideast priorities: reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But, with both of those matters stalled and little hope of any resumption in negotiations, the administration is attempting just to keep the concepts on life support.
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