The US, the coronavirus and the plight of Palestine

The month of December is upon us and the year 2020 is finally coming to an end. December is also the month of Christmas – the month the world celebrates the birth of a man who preached love, peace, compassion, called for a change of exploitative structures which enslave humankind and publicly called for forgiveness to those who tortured and killed him.

As this month begins, it is a time of major political upheaval in the US. 

Donald Trump the sitting Republican President, who was defeated at the November elections in that country, is making frantic efforts to cling to power despite his election defeat.  

But, the year -2020- will be remembered for a single disease the coronavirus/Covid-19 and a single word ‘pandemic’ has dominated the year. First detected in November 2019 the coronavirus or Covid-19 has spread to many countries, killed 1.51m people, struck down 65.1m people, while 42.1m recovered from the disease.

According to the Pew Research Center (September 2020)  in the first six months of the pandemic one-in-four adults have had trouble paying their bills, a third have dipped into savings or retirement benefits to make ends meet, and about one-in-six have borrowed money from friends or family or gotten food from a food bank. In our own country Sri Lanka, the Ruhunu University research shows income sources of 64% of the households have been affected while 7% lost their entire income.  The report adds that 3% of households lost their entire livelihood due to the pandemic.

Among the persons worst affected by the pandemic have been migrant workers and refugees the world over. In India the sudden lockdown announced by the government in March forced over ten million migrant workers to return to their homes.

However the single worst affected body/group has been the Palestinian refugees and those Palestinians living in Israeli occupied Palestinian territories. According to United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Chief, Philippe Lazzarini, “in Gaza, people are going through the garbage… More people are fighting to provide one or two meals a day to their families.”

The fate of the Palestinian refugees has been further worsened by the actions of the present US administration. US President Trump has  cut hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, declared the divided city of Jerusalem Israel’s capital, shut down Palestinian diplomatic offices in Washington and devised a “peace plan” that afforded the Israeli government a vast majority of its demands. 

 In addition, there is the threat of coronavirus ripping through refugee camps across the Middle East, home to many of the 5.6 million Palestinians supported by UNRWA. 

Four more years of a Trump administration would therefore appear to be disastrous for the Palestinian cause. But will a change of US presidents bring any major changes to the cause of the Palestinian people?

Both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have been and continue to be pro-Israel. President-elect Biden, under Obama’s administration was often used as intermediary. During his Vice Presidency, Mr. Biden described Israeli premier Netanyahu as a friend. 

More recently however, Biden has said the Israel leader had drifted “…far to the right” and this is a hopeful sign for the Palestinians. The reality however is that both Democrats and Republicans are pro-Israeli. The difference is that Trump accelerated long-standing US policies that have allowed Israeli illegal occupation of Palestinian lands without consequence to the occupiers.

Trump has also been an extreme pro-Israeli figure and with Mr. Biden it may well be a going back to normal US policy toward the Israeli-Palestine conflict.

Unfortunately, that policy has never been good for the Palestinians. But this time around it could well be the lesser of the two evils.