In his first three weeks in office, President Joe Biden made a call to US allies around the world, including the leaders of Canada, Britain, France, Japan and China.
But the leader of a close US ally has so far been left out of the call list of the new president: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While it is clear that Biden has his hands full with a host of domestic challenges, the phone does not contribute every day to concerns in Israel that Netanyahu is being frozen by the new Democratic government due to his close ties with former President Donald Trump. and his public antagonism of former President Barack Obama.
The contrast between Biden and Trump is strong: the former president called Netanyahu within two days of taking office in 2017.
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“This is a clear sign of President Biden’s dissatisfaction with the fact that Prime Minister Netanyahu has been seen in Washington for the past twelve years as almost a card-carrying member of the Republican Party,” said Dani Dayan, a former Israeli consul general. in New York.
Dayan was appointed to the post by Netanyahu in 2016, but is now part of New Hope, a right-wing political party led by former Netanyahu allies who elected him against the election.
During his time in the United States, Dayan said he made great efforts to meet Democrats to resist the perception that the Israeli prime minister was in line with the Republicans – first because of what is widely seen as Netanyahu’s implicit endorsement of Mitt Romney in 2012 election and later his warm embrace of Trump.
Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations and a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, was stunned.
In a tweet addressed to Biden, he asks, “Is it now time to call the leader of Israel, the closest ally of the United States?” before entering a phone number for Netanyahu’s office. (It appears that the number is out of order when NBC News tries to call it.)
Israeli media commentators also count the days and interpret a deliberate sniff.
“To Netanyahu’s sadness, it seems that the Americans are very interested in proving that Biden is not such a personal friend of the Prime Minister,” wrote one columnist for Makor Rishon, a Conservative newspaper. “Ghost Biden Netanyahu?” asks another heading.
Netanyahu has shaken off the White House’s lack of contact, pointing out that Biden has not yet called any leaders in the Middle East.
Biden ‘appeals to world leaders in the order he sees fit,’ he said. “The alliance between Israel and the US is strong, and so is our friendship of almost 40 years, although we may not agree on everything,”
Asked why Biden and Netanyahu had not yet spoken, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on February 2 that the US had a “long and lasting relationship” with Israel. “I’m sure they will discuss this and a number of issues when they are connected,” she said.
Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has met every Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir and has known Netanyahu for decades. He has always insisted that their personal relationship be warm despite their policy differences.
“Bibi, I do not agree with a damn thing you say, but I love you,” Biden once wrote in a signature for Netanyahu, using his popular nickname.
But Biden’s first visit to Israel as vice president in 2010 tested the connection. Hours after Air Force Two struck Tel Aviv, the Israeli government announced 1,600 new housing units in an eastern Jerusalem settlement.
The move was deemed contemptuous and forced Biden to issue a conviction. Netanyahu’s allies said he was blinded by the Interior Ministry’s announcement and that he did not intend to cause embarrassment.
Biden does not appear to have had any resentment, but tensions with Israel would only increase in the course of the Obama-Biden administration – culminating in Netanyahu’s thunderous public condemnation of Obama’s efforts to reach a nuclear deal with Iran. to reach.
The same agreement is probably an early point of contention. While Biden has shown little ambition to try to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks – to avoid one area of potential conflict with Netanyahu – he is eager to return the US quickly to the Iran nuclear deal, of which Trump 2018 withdrew. Netanyahu is still opposed to the deal, but is expected to be more discreet in his opposition.
Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, has already caused irritation in Jerusalem on another front after proposing that the new government would not abide by Trump’s decision to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau that Israel conquered from Syria in 1967. Netanyahu’s office responded with a brief statement that the region “will remain a part of the state of Israel forever”.
But as for the signing of Trump’s Israel policy, the new government has accepted that there is no return: Blinken acknowledged that the US embassy would remain in Jerusalem, although there would also be renewed diplomatic contact with the Palestinians.
Asked about the reaction of the Israeli prime minister’s office to Secretary Blinken’s comments on the Golan Heights, a State Department spokesman said: “The secretary spoke to this earlier this week and we have nothing further to say.”
Dan Shapiro, former US ambassador to Israel under Obama, said that while many in Israel and the US have been reading deeply on the question of who when when to call, the reality is that Biden is simply focused on the Covid-19. pandemic in the US and the accompanying economic downturn.
“The lack of telephone conversations so far has little to do with Netanyahu and Israel, and much, much more to do with what Biden considers his priorities,” he said.