Palestine–United States relations
Political relations between the State of Palestine and the United States have been complex and strained since the 1960s. While the U.S. does not recognize the State of Palestine, it recognizes the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) as the legitimate representative entity for the Palestinian people; following the Oslo Accords, it recognized the Palestinian National Authority as the legitimate Palestinian government of the Palestinian territories.
Due to its non-recognition of Palestine, the U.S. does not maintain any official diplomatic offices in the Palestinian territories nor does it provide consular services to Palestinians, and the Palestinians have had no diplomatic representation in the U.S. since the closure of the PLO mission in Washington, D.C., in October 2018. The U.S. designated a "Palestinian Affairs Unit" within its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem for the purpose of handling relations with the PNA, but Palestine is presently maintaining a public policy of non-cooperation with the office and with the U.S. in general. In June 2022, the "Palestinian Affairs Unit" (PAU) was renamed the "United States Office of Palestinian Affairs" and will report directly to Washington "on substantive matters".
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- Biden has pretty much picked up Trump’s foreign policy. He has eliminated some of the more gratuitously savage elements. Like in the case of Palestine, for example, Trump was not satisfied with just giving everything away to Israeli right-wing power—”do what you want”—and offering nothing to the Palestinians, just kicking them in the face. He even had to go beyond that to truly gratuitous savagery like cutting off the lifeline, the UNRWA lifeline, for Palestinians to be able to have at least minimal bare survival in the Israeli punching bag in Gaza. Even that, well, Biden removed those things. Other than that, pretty much followed the same policies.
- The United States has played a vital and instrumental role in the decades-long catastrophe that has engulfed the people of Palestine. U.S. leaders and politicians must now confront their country's and, in many cases, their own personal complicity in this catastrophe, and act urgently and decisively to reverse U.S. policy to support full human rights for all Palestinians.
