Image: Aid from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency at a refugee camp in Gaza City. An assistance package will provides $150 million in humanitarian aid, funneled through the relief agency. (Mahmud Hams/ Agence France-Presse/ Getty Images)

Reversing Trump, Biden restores aid to Palestinians
New York Times

“The Biden administration announced on Wednesday (April 7) that it would restore hundreds of millions of dollars in American aid to Palestinians, its strongest move yet to reverse President Donald J. Trump’s policy on the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The package, which gives at least $235 million in assistance to Palestinians, will go to humanitarian, economic, development and security efforts in the region, and is part of the administration’s attempt to rehabilitate U.S. relations with Palestinians, which effectively stopped when Mr. Trump was in office.”

Image: A Palestinian boy walks past a mural inspired by the coronavirus pandemic, in a street in Gaza City on March 31, 2021. (Mohammed Abed/AFP VIA Getty Images)

Biden could chart a new path for US on Palestinian rights. Will he?
TruthOut

Joyce Ajlouny of CMEP Board member organization American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) writes, “Israel leads the world in vaccine distribution, but it has largely refused to vaccinate Palestinians. In the occupied Palestinian territory, only around 2 percent of the population has been vaccinated. The Fourth Geneva Convention states that an occupying power has ‘the duty of ensuring and maintaining … the public health and hygiene in occupied territory’ and has the responsibility ‘to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics.’ Israel is ignoring its legal as well as moral responsibility. As in many places around the world, the pandemic has laid bare the stark inequalities and injustices that have always been with us. We have seen how the freedoms, rights and lives of people of color and poor people have been deemed less worthy of protections and medical care."

Image: Main image by Illustration using a photo of Palestinian activists placing a t-shirt with a logo representing their statehood bid underneath the US Consulate sign during a rally on September 21, 2011 in Jerusalem. (AP/Dusan Vranic; Illustration: Joshua Davidovich)

Did the US downgrade its Palestinian ties by ‘upgrading’ its Jerusalem mission?
Times of Israel

“Two years ago, American diplomats gathered in the courtyard of the US Consulate General on Agron Street in Jerusalem to ceremoniously mark the closing of the diplomatic mission after 175 years. Citing efficiency reasons, the Trump administration had decided to fold what had for decades served as the de facto US representative office to the Palestinians into its new embassy to Israel in the capital. It was a controversial move opposed by a majority of foreign service officers at the consulate, who saw it as a downgrade of US-Palestinian relations that would sabotage their work, according to ex-diplomats who spoke to The Times of Israel for this story."

Image: The US Capitol dome and its reflection are seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on December 29, 2012. (Karen Bleier/AFP/Getty Images)

Congressional Democrats call on Biden administration to demand Saudi Arabia lift blockade on Yemen
MSN

“A group of more than 70 congressional Democrats has sent President Joe Biden a letter pushing the White House to encourage Saudi Arabia to end a blockade of Yemen that has led to food and fuel shortages in the country that have hampered the delivery of desperately needed food aid.”