Secretary of State Tony Blinken asked the State Department to conduct a review and present policy options on possible U.S. and international recognition of a Palestinian state after the war in Gaza, two U.S. officials briefed on the issue told Axios.For decades, U.S. policy has been to oppose the recognition of Palestine as a state both bilaterally and in UN institutions and to stress Palestinian statehood should only be achieved through direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.Efforts to find a diplomatic way out of the war in Gaza has opened the door for rethinking a lot of old U.S. paradigms and policies, a senior U.S. official said.Some inside the Biden administration are now thinking recognition of a Palestinian state should possibly be the first step in negotiations to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict instead of the last, the senior U.S. official said.
What has changed? It isn't as if Palestinians have become more moderate, or willing to accept a Jewish state, over the past decade. It isn't as if they have turned against terror - on the contrary, the vast majority of Palestinians supported Hamas October 7 attack and the Abbas government never condemned October 7.
It is true that Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry said last week that it will not open diplomatic relations with Israel unless an independent Palestinian state is recognised on the fictional "1967 borders" with East Jerusalem as its capital. But this came only days after the Saudis signaled that they would accept only declarative steps of Israel saying it commits to an eventual Palestinian state to move forward because they are eager to forge a NATO-style pact with the US within two months and didn't want the Palestinian state issue to get in the way.
Which means that the Saudis aren't the reason the US is considering recognizing a Palestinian state. It strongly indicates that the Biden administration told the Saudis that they have the political space to demand more, and provide cover for any change in US policy.
So we are back to the question of why the US is sending the message of a change in longstanding US policy, to publicly support the worst antisemites in the world and throw Israel under the bus?
All indications point to Michigan.
Michigan is a key swing state in the November elections, and it has 200,000 Muslim voters - double the number of Jewish voters. And while the Jews reliably for the Democratic party no matter what its Middle East policy is, Muslim and Arab leaders have been saying since October 7 that they will abandon Biden and even allow Trump to win out of displeasure of Biden's public support of Israel after the massacre.
Back in October, the New York Times wrote about how Michigan Arabs and Muslims say they are willing to abandon Biden out of anger at the US' pro-Israel policies.
Some prominent Arab American figures in Michigan have predicted that many voters in the state will choose to leave the presidential candidate ballot blank next year.One of them is Osama Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News and an outspoken voice on Middle East policy. He has heard the worry that abandoning Mr. Biden means that Mr. Trump, should he be the Republican nominee for president, will prevail.“My argument is, ‘Let him win,’” he said of Mr. Trump.
Unlike Jews, Michigan Arabs look at the Middle East as their most important issue. In a poll commissioned by the Arab American Institute in October, nationwide support among Arabs for Biden went down from 59% in 2020 to 17% now.
In Michigan, that would translate to 84,000 votes lost for Biden. Biden carried Michigan in 2020 by only 154,000 votes, and Trump won in 2016 by only 11,000 votes.
Recognizing a Palestinian state would probably barely affect the Jewish vote in Michigan at all but Arab and Muslim leaders are threatening, as a bloc, to abandon Biden.
Biden cannot afford to lose Michigan if he is to win the election. Trump is only 2 points ahead in Michigan in the most recent poll.
Palestinian US Representative Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat, has not supported Biden during the presidential campaign. Her sister, Layla Elabed, is spearheading a campaign for Michigan Arabs and Muslims to vote "uncommitted" in the February 27th Democratic primary just to embarrass Biden and send a strong message that they prefer that Trump wins unless Biden does a U-turn on US policy away from Israel.
There have been numerous articles claiming that Benjamin Netanyahu is waging war in Gaza for political reasons only. But here we see that political reasons are the only possible reasons for the US to signal a sea change in policy against Israel and to unilaterally support a Palestinian state - and there is barely a squawk of protest from the people who claim to be the moral compass of America.
