Biden threatens to impose visa ban on Israelis accused of attacks on Palestinians

In an op-ed in The Washington Post, the president also restated his conviction that a two-state solution was the only one that would end the conflict for good.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

While still supporting Israel’s war against Hamas, U.S. President Joe Biden again claimed that violence against Palestinians in Judea and Samaria has spiked in an op-ed Saturday, warning that perpetrators would not be allowed into his country.

“I have been emphatic with Israel’s leaders that extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank must stop and that those committing the violence must be held accountable,” Biden wrote in The Washington Post. “The United States is prepared to take our own steps, including issuing visa bans against extremists attacking civilians in the West Bank.”

Israel had just been allowed to join the Visa Waiver Program in October, which allows travelers to enter the U.S. without needing to wait or to pay a hefty sum of money for the permission slip.

Foreign media and Israeli extreme leftist organizations have claimed that there has been a significant rise in “settler violence” in the disputed region since Israel declared war on Hamas October 7 following the terrorists’ invasion of Israel in which they massacred 1,200 men, women, children and infants, and took 240 hostages back to the Gaza Strip.

Top U.S. administration officials followed suit, with condemnations of the alleged violence coming from Vice President Kamala Harris when she spoke to President Isaac Herzog earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken when he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and also Biden himself, in telephone calls with Netanyahu.

Ten days ago, Israel Hayom reported in contrast that official police statistics point to the opposite happening. According to the authorities, when comparing the period between October 7 to November 7 last year to this, illegal incidents ascribed to Jews were down 50%.

Biden made clear that he is still sticking to his idea that establishing a Palestinian state is the correct answer that will “end the war forever, break the cycle of unceasing violence,” after Israel destroys the “pure, unadulterated evil” of Hamas.

“This much is clear,” he wrote. “A two-state solution is the only way to ensure the long-term security of both the Israeli and Palestinian people. Though right now it may seem like that future has never been further away, this crisis has made it more imperative than ever.

“A two-state solution — two peoples living side by side with equal measures of freedom, opportunity and dignity — is where the road to peace must lead. Reaching it will take commitments from Israelis and Palestinians, as well as from the United States and our allies and partners. That work must start now.”

Biden was writing in context of what he called “an inflection point” that the world was facing in its history, with the United States backing the right side, which included Israel in its fight against Hamas in the Middle East and Ukraine in Europe, supporting its ongoing efforts to repel a Russian invasion begun in February 2022.

Joe BidenJudea and SamariaTwo State SolutionUS-Israel visa waiver