Biden and the Middle East; Past, Present, and Future
The count is finally over! After campaigning with promises to restore stability and civility to the great nation’s politics and expand the government’s role in safely guiding it through the novel of Coronavirus, Joe Biden is officially the 46th US elected president and the oldest man to ever sworn into the office has won over Donald Trump as Pennsylvania gives him the final lead.
According to a recent survey carried out by British pollster YouGov and commissioned by Saudi daily Arab News, “When asked which (American) candidate would be better for the Arab World if elected president, most believe that neither candidate (49 percent) would fulfill such a description.”
However, people still favored Joe Biden over Trump. Out of 3,097 people polled across 18 Middle East and North African countries, around 39% favored Biden while only 12% would choose Trump. The survey also revealed that youth empowerment, the Arab-Israeli conflict and the global coronavirus pandemic among the top three concerns Arabs would like the next US president to focus on.
Joe Biden has also pledged to reverse Trump’s withdrawal of economic and humanitarian support from the Palestinians and reopen the Palestine Liberation Organization mission in Washington, as well as the US consulate in Jerusalem responsible for Palestinian affairs. He also made clear his support for withdrawing the US from the Middle East wars, including the war in Yemen.
There a lot of winners and losers from the outcome of the elections, but the time for campaigning and debating is over, and we’ll now get to see what the Biden-administration is planning to do on several fronts and cases in the Arab World.
