The Presidents of the United States, Joe Biden, and Israel, Isaac Herzog, in the Oval Office of the White House this Tuesday. EVELYN HOCKSTEIN (Portal)
US President Joe Biden received his Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog at the White House on Tuesday, a gesture that until Monday was seen as a humiliation towards Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But on the eve of the head of the Jewish state’s official visit, the White House extended an official invitation to Netanyahu, with no specific date or location yet, easing months of tensions with the head of government and opening the doors in Washington for the first time since taking power in December . The invitation reversed Biden’s last decision in March last year to avoid any meeting with Netanyahu “at short notice”.
“I bring a message of greetings and gratitude from the people of Israel, from across the country, from all sides of the political spectrum,” replied Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial but who was forced to step in in March to stop the crisis triggered by the controversial reform of the Supreme Court. “I was pleased to hear about your conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu about our strong military cooperation,” Herzog said, “because there are some of our enemies who sometimes confuse the fact that we may have certain disagreements. ” [con EE UU] with damage to our unbreakable bond.” The same adjective President Biden used to define the bilateral relationship.
“My heart and soul are also in Israel, in the heated debate we are experiencing as a society. It’s a heated debate, but also a virtue and a tribute to the greatness of Israeli democracy. Let me reiterate that Israeli democracy is strong and resilient. “We experience painful situations, heated debates, challenging moments, but I sincerely believe (…) that we should always try to find an amicable consensus,” concluded Herzog, according to the minutes released by his office, before the two heads of state and Heads of government behind closed doors met doors. for about 40 minutes. The revival of protests for judicial reform and recent military operations in the West Bank have contributed to the tensions Herzog mentioned.
The controversial reform of the Supreme Court, which aims to severely undermine its independence and subordinate it in practice to the executive branch; The expansion of settlements in the West Bank and the retrospective approval of colonies established in the area without permission, such as Eviatar – one of the so-called outposts illegal both for Israel and under international law – are a cause for concern and criticism for biden White House officials on Monday declined to comment directly on the president’s motivations for extending the invitation, but made it clear that the prospect of a meeting does not mean the president is giving up his objections to some of Netanyahu’s more extreme measures becomes. Biden himself has described the current Israeli government as “one of the most extremist Israeli coalitions” he has seen since relations with the country began in the 1970s.
The announcement puts an end to an anomaly: Netanyahu is the first Israeli leader since 1969, when Richard Nixon hosted Golda Meir, who had not officially visited Washington at the time, nearly seven months after his return to power. However, the statement does not say that the invitation was addressed to the White House, only to the United States.
On the eve of Herzog’s visit, the growing disagreement among congressional Democrats over the level of support for Israel, or even the desirability of supporting its traditional Middle East ally along with Egypt, was becoming clear. The most progressive Democrats openly condemn the Jewish state, while other coreligionists try to balance their support for the country with criticism of its current government. Several Democratic lawmakers, including Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib (the first Palestinian-American congresswoman) and Jamaal Bowman have announced that they will not be present at Herzog’s speech before the US Congress this Wednesday will be present.
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protests
As Biden and Herzog met, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in different parts of the country against judicial reform. It was one of the so-called “Days of Resistance” with dozens of protests in different parts of the country adding to the massive demonstrations that have been taking place every Saturday since last January, with Tel Aviv as the epicenter. This type of conference was common until March last year, when Netanyahu was forced to temporarily freeze reform and begin a process of dialogue mediated by the failed president.
The police used water cannons to break up a protest against judicial reform in Tel Aviv on Tuesday. AMMAR AWAD (Portal)
The failure of the negotiations and Netanyahu’s willingness to press ahead with reform have led his critics to resume this type of protest in recent weeks, stepping on the accelerator with actions such as trying to shut down the country’s main airport (Tel Aviv) and Block highways and train stations. Especially now that the government is determined to implement one of the key pieces of legislation in the reform package that would strip the Supreme Court of the ability to overturn decisions by the government, ministers or elected officials it deems “unreasonable”. The Knesset, the national parliament, is scheduled to vote next week on the last two readings (usually on the same day) needed for the text to come into force after it was approved at first reading last week.
In this pulse of time, the demonstrators took to the streets again this Tuesday. Police arrested 45 people – a similar number to previous days – and used water cannon to disperse crowds blocking a street in Tel Aviv. The organizers have also announced the start of a walk some 60 kilometers from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the seat of government and parliament.
Opposition to the reform has an important origin in the army, where hundreds of reservists and even active-duty soldiers had already threatened to stop carrying out certain orders if the reform took place. This Tuesday, 161 Air Force reservists, including several commanders, released a letter stating that they will no longer serve in their volunteer posts, considering that passage of the law that would remove the adequacy clause would “cut the situation would drastically change the nature and face of the country and would transform it from a democracy to a dictatorship.”
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