By David Hacham
The incoming Biden Administration has relegated all talk of 'reconciliation' between Fatah and Hamas to the realm of fantasy.
Now, the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority (PA), must remove itself from that process - which was little more than an attempted provocation of Israel and the Arab states in response to normalization, and the Trump peace plan - and aggressively steer itself toward the goal of seizing on Biden's victory in order to make diplomatic progress vis-à-vis Israel.
Biden's election victory has been greeted with a sigh of relief within the PA, after what for it were four nightmarish years of President Trump, whose policies categorically sided with Israel.
Yet the PA does not suffer from delusions when it comes to what it can expect to achieve under the new administration.
The PA does not expect the Biden administration to immediately steer toward a position that would favor the Palestinians. In the PA’s sober assessment, building overly grand expectations would be a serious mistake, at least in the short-term.
The new American administration will likely repudiate Trump's Deal of the Century and reject all steps that challenge the traditional two-state formula as it seeks to realign with the international community and with positions that receive legitimacy from that community – a source of encouragement as far as the PA is concerned.
Yet it will likely be many months, perhaps more than a year, before Washington even turns its attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It will be busy dealing with the coronavirus crisis and with taking steps to put the severely damaged U.S. economy back on track to growth.
Still, the arrival of Biden has provided the PA with an opportunity to climb down from the ladder it ascended when it decided to cancel security and civilian coordination with Israel as a protest against Israel's earlier intention to apply sovereignty in parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley.
In President Biden, the PA has found the justification it needed to immediately and unconditionally resume coordination with Israel, in a manner that was smoothly accepted by the Palestinian street.
In terms of what the PA can realistically expect from Washington, steps such as withdrawing the American embassy from Jerusalem back to Tel Aviv, or cancelling American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, are nonstarters. Ramallah understands that reality.
But the PA can reasonably expect the Biden administration to renew its funding of the PA and of UNRWA, reopen the PLO's embassy in Washington, and reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem, while expressing a renewed commitment to restarting the diplomatic process.
Despite the likelihood that any renewed negotiations will take time to translate into policy, the PA does expect Washington to abandon Trump's Deal of the Century as a basis for future talks. It will also seek to gain diplomatic leverage to freeze Israeli settlement construction, remove annexation from the table as a viable option for Israel, and stymie Israeli aspirations in Judea and Samaria.
The PA is also seeking increased coordination with Egypt and Jordan ahead of the arrival of the new administration, as recent visits by PA President Mahmoud Abbas to both countries demonstrate. Abbas is keen to present the image of a PA that enjoys the support and backing of moderate Arab states.
Yet even the successful cultivation of that image cannot mask the fact that the PA has lost its veto power over other Arab states and that the PA can no longer torpedo the desire of those states to promote normalization with Israel.
The latest agreements between Israel, the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco under U.S. sponsorship make it abundantly clear that the Palestinian agenda, which holds that Arab normalization with Israel is wholly contingent upon major progress in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, has been discarded by much of the Arab world.
The Sunni Arab states are preoccupied with a new strategic concern. They fear Iran's nuclear-military program, and are also concerned about Iran's ongoing attempts to entrench itself throughout the Middle East, and its support for radical Islamist elements including Hezbollah in Lebanon; an ever increasing presence.
Ramallah has little choice but to adapt and to reestablish itself as a major concern despite those shifting priorities, while cautiously raising its hopes that a new American administration can undo some of the setbacks it experienced under the Trump years.
David Hacham served for 30 years in IDF intelligence, is a former Commander of Coordination of Govt. Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and was advisor for Arab Affairs to seven Israeli Ministers of Defense.