1 of 1 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with US President Joe Biden in a 2016 picture. — Photo: Michel Euler / Portal In a 2016 photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks to US President Joe Biden. — Photo: Michel Euler/Portal
Although he decided to delay his project to weaken the judiciary by a few weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was kept in the Biden administration’s refrigerator and was to remain so for a while.
Relations between the two countries deterioratedas reflected in the US President’s final response to a possible invitation to the Israeli Prime Minister to visit him at the White House: “NO. Not in the short term.”
Bibi did not go to sleep without answering Biden, in English and in one challenging tone. At 1 a.m. in Jerusalem, he took to Twitter to invoke Israel’s sovereignty to make decisions “according to the will of its people and not under pressure from outside, including best friends.”
An important part of this alliance, which casts Israel in the camp of the extreme right, is the Minister of National Security Itamar BenGvir stirred up discord among old allies: “Biden and his administration need to understand that Israel is an independent country and not just another star on the American flag.”
The Prime Minister’s insistence on trying to undermine the independence of the judiciary which has accused him of three counts of corruption widened the rift between Israel and its biggest foreign ally. Biden has made it clear that he is concerned about the stability of Israeli democracy. “You cannot continue down this path and I have made that very clear,” he said.
Judiciary reform was put on pause mode after a general strike and massive demonstrations sparked on Sunday by the resignation of Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who opposed the project. With the temporary suspension of his government project, the Prime Minister considered that the invitation to visit Washington would come automatically.
Never before has it taken so long for an Israeli leader to be welcomed into the White House as it has been for Netanyahu in this mandate that began three months ago under the aegis of extremism. After the reform was postponed, the American ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, rushed to declare that the trip would take place soon. Shortly thereafter, the White House made it clear that nothing was planned.
“Netanyahu has become the definition of an irrational actor in international relations someone whose behavior we can no longer predict and whose words President Biden should not trust,” columnist Thomas Friedman, a veteran expert on relations between the two countries, said in the newspaper The New York Times.
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The PM is isolated in the face of traditional allies. He turned the cold shoulder on his counterparts in Italy, Germany and the United Kingdom, countries he visited as Israelis vented their anger at ongoing judicial reform in their coalitioncontrolled parliament. But nothing bothers his opponents and now Netanyahu too more than the distance established by the US government.
In his sixth term in Israel, he lived alongside various American presidential styles and did not hide his fondness for Republicans. With Trump, Netanyahu enjoyed moments of glory: he received benefits such as the inauguration of the embassy in Jerusalem, the abandonment of the deal with Iran, and other concessions that buried any project for a peace deal with the Palestinians.
As a veteran political fox, he rushed to congratulate Biden on his election in 2020, infuriating his predecessor who yelled at the imaginary U.S. electoral fraud.
The current US president met Netanyahu when the prime minister was just a rising star in Likud. I knew how to deal with it and close the gap between Netanyahu and Obama. When I was Vice President Biden made frequent trips to Israel to stand up for Obamawho has never hidden his anger at the prime minister and his expansion project in the Palestinian Territories and his opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran.
An open microphone in 2011 expressed the displeasure of the former US President and his French counterpart Nicolas Sarkozy, who called Netanyahu a liar. “You’re sick of him, but I’m the one who has to deal with him every day,” Obama summarized. Biden appears to share that fatigue.