Democratic 2020 US presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at The Graduate Center of CUNY in the Manhattan borough of New York, New York, US, July 11, 2019. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri.

JNS.org – Former US Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday that if elected president, he would reopen the Palestine Liberation Organization Diplomatic Mission in Washington, DC, and restore US assistance to the Palestinian Authority.

The presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee also reiterated that he would reopen the US consulate in eastern Jerusalem, which primarily serves the Palestinians.

“A priority now for the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace should be resuming our dialogue with the Palestinians and pressing Israel not to take actions that make a two-state solution impossible,” Biden told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement. “I will reopen the US consulate in East Jerusalem, find a way to reopen 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.”

The Trump administration has virtually cut off all US assistance to the Palestinian Authority due to Ramallah’s “pay to slay” program, rewarding terrorists and their families. The PLO mission was closed in October 2018.