Biden developing new Mideast doctrine bent on forming Palestinian state — NYT’s Friedman

US President Joe Biden’s administration is homing in on a new doctrine involving an unprecedented push to immediately advance the creation of a demilitarized but viable Palestinian state, The New York Times’ Thomas Friedman says.

The plan, Friedman writes, “would involve some form of US recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would come into being only once Palestinians had developed a set of defined, credible institutions and security capabilities to ensure that this state was viable and that it could never threaten Israel.”

What is termed the new “Biden Doctrine” would also include boosting ties with Saudi Arabia alongside a normalization of ties between Riyadh and Jerusalem, and maintaining a tough military stance against Iran and its proxies.

Hamas’s October 7 mass onslaught in Israel is “forcing a fundamental rethinking about the Middle East within the Biden administration,” Friedman writes.

“If the administration can pull this together — a huge if — a Biden Doctrine could become the biggest strategic realignment in the region since the 1979 Camp David treaty,” he contends.