US First lady Melania Trump, left, and US President Donald Trump, center, remain on stage as Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, walk away at the conclusion of the second and final presidential debate, October 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

But the US Embassy’s Palestinian Affairs Unit is now reporting directly to DC, as the shuttered Jerusalem mission did until 2019, in a partial revival of the pre-Trump status quo

It’s been seven months since US Secretary of State Antony Blinken notified Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas of the Biden administration’s plan to reopen the US Consulate in Jerusalem, but Washington has yet to even produce a timeline for when it plans to see the move through.

A US diplomat, a former senior US official and another source familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel this week that the Biden administration has effectively shelved its effort to resurrect the de facto mission to the Palestinians shuttered by former president Donald Trump in 2019.

weiter