Reversing course in Trump's last weeks in office is not an easy choice, especially as the Trump administration remains committed to help Israel achieve its objectives to the very end.
On November 19, US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, became the first top US official to visit an illegal Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank. During his visit to a winery in the Psagot settlement, Pompeo gave Netanyahu yet more good news. He announced that products from illegal Jewish settlements could now be labeled "Made in Israel", and that the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement would be declared 'anti-Semitic' by the US State Department.
The latter announcement will give Israel the legal capital required to prosecute and silence any US civil society opposition to Israel's illegal occupation. Israel is counting on the fact that Biden is unlikely to dare contest or reverse such policies due to the sensitivity of the subject of anti-Semitism - real or alleged - in US politics.
The same rationale applies to the settlement building frenzy throughout occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
On November 20, Israeli authorities announced that 80 Palestinian families would be evicted from their homes in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. These homes would, in turn, be handed over to illegal Israeli Jewish settlers.
The news of the mass eviction came only a few days after the government's announcements that the illegal settlements of Givat Hamatos and Ramat Shlomo, both located in East Jerusalem, are set for major expansion.
The massive development in Givat Hamatos, according to the Israeli group 'Peace Now', "will severely hamper the prospect of a two-State solution because it will ultimately block the possibility of territorial contiguity between East Jerusalem" and major urban centers in the West Bank.
The announcements are strategically timed, as they carry an unmistakable political message that Israel does not intend to reverse its settlement policies, regardless of who resides in the White House.
The coming weeks are likely to witness even more coordinated Israeli-US moves, where the Trump administration will seek to fulfill Netanyahu's political wish list, leaving Biden with little political margin to maneuver, thus denying his government the self-proclaimed, undeserved title of the 'honest peace broker'.
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