The Biden administration is planning a “January surprise” that is “modeled directly on the January surprise of the Obama administration in 2016—that is U.N. Resolution 2334, which basically, to put it a little bit crudely, recognized the Green Line that is the June 5, 1967 ceasefire lines that separated Israel from Jordan as an international boundary,” Michael Doran, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and director of its center for peace and security in the Middle East, said on his podcast on Dec. 31.
Speaking with his co-host Gadi Taub, an Israeli historian and writer, Doran said that the Obama administration’s surprise meant that “any development that Israel has made to the east of the Green Line since the 1967 War is recognized by the U.N. as an illegal settlement.”
“This means including the Western Wall uh is ‘occupied territory,’” the former senior director in the U.S. National Security Council said on the “Israel Update” podcast.
“Lots of neighborhoods that any Israeli today regards as Israel proper are regarded by 2334 as Israeli illegal Israeli settlements,” Doran said. “That’s what Barack Obama did for the Israelis—kicked the Netanyahu government in the groin as it was leaving office in 2016, but it did it in a very devious way.”
The Obama administration had it “both ways” by having others put the resolution forward, and then Washington abstained and said it couldn’t go against what the international community wants.
“The Biden administration is planning something similar right now,” Doran said.
The administration will latch onto section 620(i) of the Foreign Assistance Act, which says, “that any country that is blocking U.S. humanitarian aid will have its military assistance cut off,” Doran said. He noted that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin sent Israel a letter to that effect. “That’s based on 620(i),” Doran said.
“The January surprise is that there will be an official finding by the State Department that Israel is in violation of 620(i). It’s blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza, and then what will happen is that the president will waive the penalties for blocking of the humanitarian aid, but there will have been an official American finding,” Doran said. “There will be an official American finding, but there will be no penalties to Israel, so again the administration gets to have it both ways. Finds Israel guilty but then says, ‘Well we’re not going to do anything about it.”
“But there’s the official finding and then the ball moves to the Security
Council, where Algeria or Slovenia will take it and get a U.N. resolution that will punish Israel in some way,” he added. “The United States again will either support the resolution or abstain depending upon the wording of it.”
Step three, according to Doran, is that the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, European Union and others will use the official American finding to pressure Israel.
“That’s the January surprise that is coming,” Doran said. He added that it’s not clear if the surprise is going to happen, though, as there are “two camps” in the Biden administration that “are fighting it out.”
“The big question is whether the president and the secretary of state are going to sign on to it or not,” he said. “But the plan has been well developed.”
The incoming Trump administration and Congress can also prevent such a plan from going into effect, he said.
USAID head Samantha Power, deputy secretary Kurt Campbell, assistant secretary Barbara Leaf and under secretary Uzra Zeya support the “January surprise” plan, as do special envoy Lise Grande, State Department legal adviser Margaret Taylor and Ned Price, deputy to U.S. envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield, according to Doran.
Doran cited White House staffers, including Curtis Ried, chief of staff and executive secretary of the National Security Council, and Jon Finer, principal deputy national security advisor, as supporters of the plan.
Those in the opposing camp include Derek Chollet, chief of staff to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and advisers to the president Brett McGurk and Amos Hochstein, according to Doran, who said that Blinken and Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, are “on the fence.”