Netanyahu has been a bottomless source of unwavering support for Donald Trump in office, and has not once publicly criticized the unpredictable and often ominous president. The 71-year-old has celebrated almost every foreign policy initiative of the Trump administration in the Middle East, becoming his most visible international cheerleader.
With an upcoming election, a third national exclusion and an imminent resumption of his trial on charges of corruption, Israel’s longest-serving leader must work with the man who ousted Trump from the Oval Office.
Biden’s relationship with Israel spans nearly half a century until he met then-Prime Minister Golda Meir in 1973 as a first Delaware senator. Since then, it has grown into a “very emotional connection with Israel,” one former Obama administration official told CNN. “He sees Israel through the lens and as a true democracy in a region that is not so characterized.”
Biden and Netanyahu first developed their friendship in the 1980s, when Biden was a young senator who served on the Foreign Relations Committee and served Netanyahu at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC. Over the years, the two men got to know each other, met each other’s families and kept in touch while Netanyahu rose up through politics to become Israel’s prime minister in 1996.
When Netanyahu lost his election to Ehud Barak three years later, “Biden kept in touch with him, writing a letter to him, things politicians would not normally do,” a source familiar with the affair said. “I know Bibi appreciated that. Biden did not treat him like he had before. ‘ As the years passed, Netanyahu dropped by Biden’s office to pay a visit to Washington.
But the friendship was tested when Biden became vice president of Barack Obama. Netanyahu read Obama infamous in 2011 about Middle Eastern politics in the White House and then presented it in his 2019 election campaign.
When Biden visited Israel in 2010, Netanyahu’s government announced a new settlement building in East Jerusalem, which then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called “insulting.”
“The later years of the Obama administration were tough. Some of the team will remember it, but [Biden is] will have no interest in fueling the tension, “said one source familiar with the relationship. Netanyahu clashed with Obama over negotiations with the Palestinians, and then again more openly on the Iran deal.
“I do not agree with a damn thing you say, but I love you”
But the dynamics have changed.
Netanyahu long ago became a political chameleon and shifted from the prime minister who endorsed a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a major speech in 2009, to the leader who a decade later Trump’s vision for the Middle East -Eastern peace endorsed, which is any conventional understanding of two states for two peoples. He led centrist, center-right and right-wing governments in his fourteen years in office, but no period was as easy for him – or as easy for him as the Trump administration. Trump was the gift from Netanyahu who kept giving.
In return, Netanyahu seemed to bring Israel more and more closely aligned with the Republican Party, and even went so far as to name a new settlement in the Golan Heights after former President Trump Heights. When Netanyahu joined Trump at the White House for signing the Abrahamic agreement with the foreign ministers of the Emirates and Bahrain, the Israeli leader did not meet any democratic politicians.
Ron Dermer, Israeli ambassador to the United States and one of the closest to Netanyahu, was a regular visitor to the White House. Dermer’s term ended on the day the Biden administration took office.
Israeli Minister Tzachi Hanegbi maintains that Netanyahu’s policies were never pro-Republican or pro-democrat, but only in line with Israel’s needs.
“Our policies are always twofold,” Hanegbi said, “but of course [Netanyahu] was always very pleased with Trump’s policies. ‘
“When we will have a good relationship with the Biden government – and we will have a good relationship with the new government – it does not mean that we are pro-Democratic and anti-Republican,” he said. “The chemistry, the intimacy, the mutual recognition of each other’s passion for his country – these are things that can create credibility for each other’s policies.”
Should Netanyahu treat Biden like a friend or foe?
But Netanyahu is now in the midst of a fourth election campaign in two years, with no guarantee that the country can break the cycle of endless elections. Netanyahu politically benefited from attacking Obama, showing the Israeli public that he had the courage to stand up to an American leader. Now he has to decide if he will do it under Biden.
“Netanyahu is a supreme diplomat, but as far as America is concerned, he bears the burden of his almost explicit allegiance to the GOP,” said Dani Dayan, the former consul general of New York and a candidate for the New Hope party. said Netanyahu’s Likud in the March 23 election. “The next prime minister of Israel will have to do a lot to restore the dual relationship.”
Netanyahu is attacked by Gideon Sa’ar, an ideological right-wing politician who split from Netanyahu’s Likud party to form the New Hope party. Despite Sa’ar’s opposition to territorial concessions and a two-state solution, he promised to restore dual support to Israel and position himself as a better partner for Biden.
“I will rebuild Israel’s good and balanced relations with both sides,” Sa’ar promised in a Zoom meeting with AIPAC. “As Prime Minister, I will work with President Biden and his government to emphasize the importance of not returning to the previous agreement.”
Analysts told CNN that Biden strongly believes in foreign policy, in part on personal relationships, but his friendship with Netanyahu is likely to be tested by political pressure in the coming months. The election is just one challenge, and it may not even be the first one that could hamper the relationship.
The direction of the Biden government over a nuclear deal with Iran is at the top of the priority list for Israel. The original nuclear deal was the source of some of the bitterest disputes between Obama and Netanyahu, highlighted in the prime minister’s decision to speak before a joint session of Congress in 2015, a speech that Obama did not attend.
“Israel’s relations with Obama were icy, it started badly and never recovered,” said David Makovsky, a director of the Washington Institute for Near East Studies. “But Biden is someone who knows Israelites. He has been around for a long time. ‘
Nevertheless, Biden is not expected to put Israeli-Palestinian negotiations very high on his agenda, according to one former Obama official who worked for the region, who said the government “does not want to spend political capital” on the issue.
‘At Biden there will be no perception that he wants to get out [Netanyahu], “said veteran diplomat Dennis Ross, who served as negotiator and adviser to three U.S. administrations.
“That’s not what this relationship would be like,” Ross added. “There was a perception that grew up in Israel that Obama was not fair to Israel. To stand up to an American president who does not look fair is seen in Israel as a good thing. To stand up “Facing an American president who is seen as fair is not great. Biden is largely considered fair.”
CNN’s Andrew Carey and Vivian Salama contributed to this report.