Israel’s new ambassador to the United States, Gilad Erdan, began his term in office in Washington, DC on Thursday, with his appointment coinciding with the inauguration of President Biden.
He replaces Ambassador Ron Dermer, who has held the position for seven and a half years and who has helped shape the Trump administration’s dramatic shift over U.S. policy toward Israel and the Middle East.
Erdan, who will play the dual roles of the Israeli ambassador to the United States and the United Nations, said he was committed to working with the Biden government to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change.
“I am entering my position as Israel’s ambassador to the most important country in the world and Israel’s most important ally,” Erdan said in a statement.
“Under my leadership, Israel will continue to work closely with the United States and with the new government in its agenda to defeat the coronavirus and tackle climate change, a topic that is very close to my heart, he added.
Erdan is the second rank of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu MORELikud’s political party, and his position in Washington is considered a direct extension of Netanyahu.
Erdan is expected to hand over his credentials to Biden, a traditional ceremony for an incoming diplomat, but will no doubt be different in the era of COVID-19. According to the Israeli embassy, the date for a meeting has not yet been set.
He will be an important voice as Biden’s government works to involve Iran in curbing its nuclear ambitions in an effort to bring the US back to Iran’s nuclear deal in 2015, which aims to prevent Tehran from ability to build a nuclear weapon.
Netanyahu opposes the US re-entering the agreement, arguing that the agreement does not go far enough to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambition, which is an existential threat to Israel. President Trump
Donald Trump Clinton, Bush, Obama reflects on the peaceful transition of power on Biden’s inauguration day in Arizona, the Republican brothers of Arizona say he is ‘at least partially to blame’ for violence in the Capitol. Biden returns Trump’s freeze on .4 billion in funds MOREs withdrawal from the agreement in 2018.
For Biden, Israel’s opposition to the US with Iran will be strengthened by key ties in Washington with Yousef Al Otaiba, the United Arab Emirates’ envoy to the US, and Bahrain’s ambassador to the US, Abdullah Bin Mohammad Bin Rashed Al Khalifa – relations formally mediated by the Trump administration under the agreement known as the Abraham Agreement.
Al Otaiba developed a close relationship with Dermer while serving as the Israeli envoy to Washington.
And both the UAE and Bahrain have spoken out about their expectation to be taken up by the Biden government over discussions involving Iran over the restriction of its nuclear program.
Although Biden has long expressed strong support for Israel, saying the US commitment to its security is’ iron ”, his government is expected to review many of the drastic policy shifts that have taken place under the Trump administration. Israel.
This includes the Biden government’s commitment to rejoin the Palestinians, which hopes the president will resume funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, the primary aid program for Palestinian refugees for which Trump suspended US support in 2018. .
Israel at the time welcomed the move and long criticized the agency as contributing to the perpetuation of the status of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 Israeli-Arab war, and that their deceased were included as beneficiaries of refugee status.
Another important step the Trump administration took to welcome Israel was former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
Mike PompeoBiden taps career officials in acting positions at the state, USAID, UN-China sanctions Pompeo and more than two dozen US figures China calls Pompeo ‘judgment sausage’ after treating Uighurs genocide MOREThe decision to recognize Israeli settlements in the West Bank as part of Israel is a major reversal of US policy.
The majority of the world community considers the settlements to be illegal under international law. In addition, Pompeo’s US investments in the settlements, which were previously blocked, are approved and allowed for the export of Israeli settlements in the West Bank to the USA as ‘Made in Israel’.
Other important issues include how the Biden government is approaching the movement for boycott, repulsion and sanctions, an organized effort to push Israel through political, cultural and economic boycotts over its policies toward the Palestinians.
Pompeo issued a directive to the State Department calling the movement anti-Semitic and instructing the agency to compile a list of non-governmental organizations supporting the movement that would be banned from receiving State Department funding.
There is dual opposition to boycott, rejection and sanctions in Congress, but Democratic lawmakers are divided over the implications of legislation against the movement over the violation of the rights to the First Amendment.
Antony Blinken
Antony Blinken Senate confirms Biden’s intel chief, giving him the first official of the Biden cabinet to stop US withdrawal from the World Health Organization. Biden hires career officials as acting officials in the state, USAID, UN MORE, Biden’s nominated foreign minister, said during his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that he and the president were “strongly opposed” to the movement and that it unfairly and improperly excluded Israel, promoting a double standard and a standard what we do does not apply to other countries. ”
But Blinken also said he respects the rights for the first amendment of Americans “to say what they believe and think.”
Blinken also said during his confirmation hearing that the Biden government would hold the US embassy in Jerusalem. Trump moved the embassy from there to Tel Aviv in 2018, which was celebrated by Israeli officials as legal recognition of Jerusalem as the country’s undivided capital.
Most of the international communities that have relations with Israel maintain their diplomatic missions in Tel Aviv and recognize that the final status of Jerusalem should only be determined through comprehensive negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, hoping for a capital of a future Establish Palestinian state in the city. .