Will Biden ever stand up to Benjamin Netanyahu? Don’t bet on it | Chris McGreal

Netanyahu and his far-right allies have rejected a two-state solution over and over - yet the US is unwilling to call them on it

Joe Biden has expended a lot of effort to avoid taking Benjamin Netanyahu at his word.

The Israeli prime minister has spent his political life opposing a Palestinian state and acting accordingly. And although Biden has trotted out a rote commitment to the two-state solution when confronted with a crisis in the Middle East, there was barely a murmur from the White House as Netanyahu's far-right government ramped up creeping colonisation of the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and hardened its domination of the Palestinians who live there.

Chris McGreal writes for the Guardian US and is a former Guardian correspondent in Washington, Johannesburg and Jerusalem. He is the author of American Overdose: The Opioid Tragedy in Three Acts