In an article in the NBC News website, Martin Indyk, former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations reviewed the history of US attempts to find peace between Israel and Palestine and outlined four steps he considers Biden could take to move the process forward.

He thinks the first priority is to repair the damage wrought by the Trump administration. Trump’s “deal of the century” should be taken off the table and relations should be restored with the PLO and the Palestinian Authority. U.S. aid to the Palestinian people should be revived.

Second, the new President should reassert the basic principles of U.S. policy toward resolving the conflict (some of which are enshrined in U.N. Security Council Resolution 242) such as the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force, the need for Israeli withdrawal to secure and recognized borders based on the 1967 lines, condemnation of all forms of violence, terrorism and incitement, and opposition to unilateral acts, including annexation and settlement expansion.

Third, the new administration should be willing to support a resumption of direct peace negotiations, but only when both sides are ready to accept the basic parameters of a two-state solution.

And fourth, Finally, President Biden will need to encourage both sides to rethink their basic approaches to resolving their conflict. Pressing ahead with the recent normalization of relations between Arab states and Israel, which Trump deserves credit for cultivating, can facilitate these reassessments.

Read the full article here.