Senator Warren: Restrict US military aid to Israel, ‘Trump is gone’

“Trump is gone, and Biden and his team are very different,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Monday said that the Biden administration has the ability to save the two-state solution, which is “on life support” due to the policies of the Trump administration.  She also called for restricting the use of U.S. military aid to pressure Israel.

“We’re at a critical juncture right now,” Warren said during her keynote address to J Street’s 2021 National Conference.

“The Trump administration’s disastrous policies made the two-state solution further from becoming a reality. But Trump is gone, and Biden and his team are very different,” she said.

Warren said the Biden administration has the values, judgment, and experience to “undo the damage” and make the two-state solution viable again.

She called the two-state solution “a moral issue,” and said it would mean “an end to Israeli occupation and the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”

Warren expressed harsh criticism of the Trump administration’s efforts toward Mideast peace.

“They undermined 50 years of U.S. leadership as an effective mediator by abandoning any pretense of neutrality and by jumping directly into the peace process in a way that put a thumb on the scales by giving a green light to settlements, cutting off aid and communication with the Palestinians, and publishing a one-sided peace plan,” she said.

She also said she opposed Trump’s decision to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem “without any equivalent step for the Palestinians.”

Warren said it is no longer enough for the U.S. to insist that the parties get together and work out their differences through negotiations.

“When the imbalance of power between the two sides is as vast as it is between Israel and the Palestinians, passive calls for a negotiated solution do little more than perpetuate the status quo. It is time to act,” she said.

In addition to Biden’s restoration of funding to the Palestinian Authority, she called on the U.S. to take immediate action to restore its relationship with the Palestinians.

“We should immediately reopen the U.S. consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem and the PLO delegation office in Washington, DC,” said Warren.

She encouraged using U.S. military assistance, which she called “the elephant in the room,” to put pressure on Israel.

“If we’re serious about arresting settlement expansion and helping move the parties toward a two-state solution, then it would be irresponsible not to consider all of the tools we have at our disposal,” said Warren.

“One of those is restricting military aid from being used in the occupied territories. By continuing to provide military aid without restriction, we provide no incentive for Israel to adjust course,” she said.