US President Joe Biden on Monday agreed to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the United States, after twice refusing to host him in the White House.
The two leaders spoke by phone after months of increasing friction over Israel’s judicial overhaul process, Iran and accelerated West Bank settlement activity.
The Biden-Netanyahu call came as President Isaac Herzog is set to visit the White House on Tuesday and to address a joint session of Congress, celebrating 75 years of ties between the two countries.
The warm welcome underscored the absence of a White House invitation for Netanyahu.
Just last week Biden called the current Israeli government “the most extreme” in 50 years, citing its ministers’ support for expanding West Bank settlements its opposition to a Palestinian state.
U.S. President Joe Biden speaks on his deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to raise the United States’ debt ceiling at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 28, 2023 (credit: REUTERS/Julia Nikhinson)There are also tensions over Biden’s push to conclude an agreement with Iran to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. Israel believes the tentative deal would not be nearly strong enough to halt Iran’s push to produce atomic weapons.
Netanyahu-Biden meeting could take place on UNGA sidelines
The Prime Minister’s Office did not say whether the Netanyahu-Biden meeting would take place at the White House, and there was speculation that it could take place on the sidelines of high-level sessions at the UN General Assembly in New York this fall.
The meeting would take place in the US, and Netanyahu had agreed to accept the invitation, the Prime Minister’s Office said. A suitable date for the meeting would be coordinated with US officials, it added.
Netanyahu updated Biden on the expected passage next week in the Knesset of the reasonableness bill, which is part of the package of judicial overhaul legislation. He assured Biden that consensus talks would be held over the summer on other overhaul bills, even though the reasonableness bill is moving forward without consensus.
The two men discussed ways to strengthen the Israeli-US alliance and the necessity of curbing Iran’s nuclear program. They also spoke about expanding the Abraham Accords to include normalization deals between Israel and other Arab countries, the Prime Minister’s Office said.
Their conversation also dealt with the importance of stabilizing the volatile situation in the West Bank, particularly following the IDF’s two-day military campaign to destroy terrorist infrastructure in Jenin earlier this month.
There was some talk about another meeting of the Forum of Five, such as the ones that occurred earlier this year in Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh with representatives from Egypt, Jordan, the US, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.
Lahav Harkov contributed to this report.
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