Biden & Security Council ploy sinks two-state solution

The attempt by President Biden and the UN Security Council to adopt a specific two-state solution (Biden/Security Council Solution) to end more than 100 years of conflict between Jews and Arabs has turned out to be a political disaster – virtually ensuring any future plan to create an independent state between Jordan and Israel is dead and buried.

The Biden/Security Council Solution involved:

1. America submitting a draft resolution to the Security Council calling for a ceasefire in Gaza - Resolution S/2024/448 - containing the following clause which has nothing to do with a ceasefire:

Reiterat(ing) its unwavering commitment to the vision of the two-State
solution where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace
within secure and recognized borders, consistent with international law and relevant
UN resolutions, and in this regard stresses the importance of unifying the Gaza Strip
with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority;

2. The Security Council adopting Resolution S/2024/448 as Security Council Resolution 2735 on 10 June – laying the foundation for Israel to be sledgehammered into accepting their solution.

President Biden should reveal who came up with this stratagem.

A similar ploy had been attempted on 23 December 2016 when a clearly-frustrated President Obama and Vice President Biden - in the act of vacating the White House for President-elect Donald Trump without having achieved any breakthrough in implementing Obama's own 2011 two-state solution - decided to abstain rather than veto Security Council Resolution 2334 which:

• Reiterat(ed) its vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders,
• Reaffirmed that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace;

This Obama-Biden abstention was a vindictive act against Israel's national interest and ignored that:

•  Israel's legal right to establish settlements was done in accordance with articles 6 and 25 of the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations own Charter
• Resolution 2334 was beyond the power of the Security Council to adopt because of article 80.

Biden and the Security Council haven't since 2016 been prepared to consider any solution other than a two-state solution that meets the conditions embodied in Security Council Resolution 2334.