J Street congratulates Ambassador Daniel Shapiro on his appointment as Senior Advisor for Regional Integration. As an adept and effective ambassador to Israel under President Obama, he is well placed to support the Biden administration’s commitment to advancing a more peaceful and interconnected region, deepening and broadening Israel’s normalization with Arab- and Muslim-majority countries and building on the Negev Forum.
Ongoing diplomacy to integrate Israel into the Middle East region presents an important opportunity to resolve the primary threat to Israel’s long-term security and democracy – the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In strengthening the Abraham Accords, the Biden administration can harness these normalization efforts to make the Palestinians a full and equal partner, and work towards achieving a two-state solution and an end to the occupation.
For more on how the Biden administration can leverage regional normalization to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace, read Israeli-Arab Normalization and Advancing Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Resolution from the J Street Policy Center, and this special issue brief by J Street’s Senior Vice President for Policy and Strategy, Dylan Williams, about the role of a Special Advisor for Middle East Normalization.