White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki declined to say Tuesday what concessions, if any, President Joe Biden would require from the Palestinians in exchange for the benefits that he promised to provide them during his election campaign.
As Breitbart News reported last May, Biden promised to restore funding to the Palestinians that had been cut off because of concern about support for terrorism. He made other commitments as well.
“I will reopen the U.S. consulate in East Jerusalem, find a way to re-open the PLO’s diplomatic mission in Washington, and resume the decades-long economic and security assistance efforts to the Palestinians that the Trump Administration stopped,” Biden said, as quoted at the time by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Psaki faced questions from reporters in the White House Briefing Room, including Jake Turx of Ami magazine, who asked: “During the campaign … Mr. Biden had said that he would give benefits to the Palestinians, but he didn’t specify anything that he would ask [in return], any concessions. So the question is: Is it the belief of this administrations that the Palestinians don’t have to make concessions to get funding, or a consulate?”
Psaki could not answer, and deferred to the “national security team, and the State Department, and [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan.”
She added that Biden supports a two-state solution to the conflict.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is How Not to Be a Sh!thole Country: Lessons from South Africa. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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