Biden invites Netanyahu to the United States, reducing tensions
Biden invites Netanyahu to the United States, reducing tensions
In an effort to defuse months’ worth of animosity between the two leaders, Vice President Joe Biden has extended an invitation to Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to attend a meeting in the United States. This will be the first meeting between the two leaders since Netanyahu returned to power in December.
The office of Mr. Netanyahu stated that Mr. Biden extended the offer in a “warm and long” phone call on Monday evening. This contact took place on the eve of a trip to Washington, D.C., by Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel. This trip was, up until Monday evening, largely perceived as an insult to Mr. Netanyahu.
As a result of receiving the offer,
Mr. Biden revised his decision from March to avoid meeting with Mr. Netanyahu “in the near term.”
Mr. Biden had recently referred to Mr. Netanyahu‘s coalition as “one of the most extremist” since the 1970s. He also expressed his particular opposition to Mr. Netanyahu’s decisions to undermine the power of Israel’s Supreme Court, build more Israeli homes in the occupied West Bank, and retroactively authorise Israeli settlements built in the territory without government approval.
“In the context of the current debate in Israel about judicial reform, President Biden reiterated the need for the broadest possible consensus,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “President Biden also emphasised that shared democratic values have always been and must continue to be a hallmark of the relationship between the United States and Israel,” said John Kirby.
Israel’s opposition, who had called on the Biden administration to take an even tougher stance against Mr. Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul, expressed their dissatisfaction with the move, which came as a surprise to them.
It is now anticipated that Mr. Netanyahu, who heads the most right-wing administration in Israel’s history, will move forward with a controversial plan to restrict the influence of his country’s judicial system. This strategy has resulted in political turmoil in Israel, and it has garnered harsh condemnation from Mr. Biden, who has stated that the U.S.-Israel cooperation needs to be anchored in a common commitment to democracy.
It is currently unknown when Mr. Netanyahu will travel to the United States,
and it is also not known whether he will be invited to the White House or to another location in the country. However, the invitation alleviates some of the anxiety that had been hanging over Mr. Herzog’s travel to the United States on Tuesday. Mr. Herzog will meet with Mr. Biden before delivering a joint address to Congress on Wednesday.
The warm reception that Mr. Herzog, whose role in the administration is mostly symbolic, received from members of both parties in the United States illustrates the importance that the United States government has on Israel as a political and military ally in the Middle East. Israel receives annual assistance from the United States of close to $3.8 billion, substantial quantities of weapons and defence technology, extensive diplomatic cover at the United Nations Security Council, and essential assistance in constructing new alliances with Arab countries from the United States.
Some Democratic lawmakers have expressed their displeasure with Mr. Herzog’s invitation to visit Washington. They believe that Mr. Herzog is merely a proxy for Mr. Netanyahu and have stated that they will not attend his talk in order to oppose Israel’s policy towards the Palestinians.
In spite of the tensions with Mr. Netanyahu,
the administration of Vice President Joe Biden has persisted in its efforts to prevent the United Nations from taking punitive action against Israel for the way it treats Palestinians. One of the most important objectives in foreign policy that Mr. Netanyahu has set for himself is to have normal diplomatic relations established between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and the White House is making significant efforts to facilitate this.
But despite this, Mr. Biden and his administration have expressed rising irritation about the continued Israeli settlement of the West Bank. Even though an increasing number of scholars believe that the establishment of a Palestinian state is no longer feasible, the United States views this as a significant barrier to the establishment of a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel. This is the outcome that continues to be the Biden administration’s first choice for a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.
Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli minister of finance, recently declared that the Israeli state ought to “erase” a Palestinian community that has been at the centre of recent violence. These views have been met with resistance from the United States government in Washington, as they are seen to be extremist in nature. Ned Price, a spokesman for the Department of State, referred to such comments as “irresponsible, disgusting, and repugnant.”
This image was bolstered by the invitation that was extended to Mr. Netanyahu on Monday. Some Israelis who are critical of Mr. Netanyahu believe that the position taken by the Biden administration has not been strong enough. At least twice in the past few days, protestors opposed to the government have assembled in front of the U.S. Embassy branches in Tel Aviv, with some of them carrying placards that pleaded with Vice President Joe Biden to “Save us!”
However, Mr. Netanyahu’s supporters believed that Mr. Biden’s approach had already reached an excessively aggressive level. The Israeli opposition “prearranged and orchestrated” Mr. Biden’s concerns, according to Amichai Chikli, who serves as Mr. Netanyahu’s minister for diaspora relations. After a United States official advised that Benjamin Netanyahu slow down the process of overhauling the Israeli judiciary, he also told Mr. Biden’s envoy, Thomas R. Nides, to “mind your own business.”
Before the invitation was officially extended,
Education Minister Yoav Kisch stated in a radio interview on Monday that “I tell you in the clearest way: Of course it would have been appropriate for Prime Minister Netanyahu to travel” instead of Mr. Herzog.
Mr. Kisch continued by saying, “I am happy that the president is travelling, and I think that this is important.” However, he stated, “The bottom line is that this entire event with Biden is most likely being fueled and inflated by elements inside the state of Israel,” making a reference to Mr Netanyahu’s detractors. “The bottom line is that this entire event with Biden is most likely being fueled and inflated by elements inside the state of Israel,” he added.
The United States’ and Israel’s relationship has historically been marked by tense moments on multiple occasions. In the 1950s, the Eisenhower administration and David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, were at odds over Israel’s brief invasion of Egypt. This conflict occurred during the Eisenhower administration.
As a result of Israel’s unwillingness to withdraw from territory that it had conquered from Egypt in 1967, the Ford administration severed connections between the two countries in the 1970s. Over the course of the 1990s, Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton engaged in public disagreements with a series of Israeli prime ministers, including Benjamin Netanyahu, on the expansion of settlements.Twenty years later, Mr. Netanyahu had a falling out with President Barack Obama, particularly after Mr. Netanyahu presented his own joint address to Congress without Mr. Obama’s consent. This caused Mr. Netanyahu to lose the president’s favour.
However, while the majority of those earlier disagreements were limited to specific geopolitical differences — typically concerning Egypt, Iran, or the Palestinians — the argument between Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu is distinct because it partly involves a disagreement over values, according to Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.
