President Joe Biden met Wednesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York and offered a long-awaited White House visit by the year’s end.
Biden had rejected the traditional White House invite for Netanyahu earlier this year, objecting first to the prime minister’s proposed judicial reforms, and then to the presence of far-right parties in Netanyahu’s coalition.
However, when Israel’s ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, arrived for a White House visit in July, the snub began to draw questions and criticism, and Biden appeared to relent, though he would not commit to a White House visit.
Both sides have softened their tone in recent weeks: Netanyahu has been outspoken about seeking compromise with the Israeli opposition on judicial reform, and Biden praised the U.S.-Israel relationship effusively Wednesday.
At the UN, the Times of Israel noted, Biden and Netanyahu both stressed the ongoing effort to forge a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, one that could also include steps toward long-sought peace with the Palestinians.
Netanyahu also stressed joint U.S.-Israeli opposition to the Iranian regime, and Iranian efforts to obtain a nuclear weapon.
In the White House readout of the closed-door portion of the meeting, Israel’s judicial reform was not mentioned explicitly, though the statement stressed that close ties were “based on the bedrock of shared democratic values.”
The readout also called for maintaining the “viability” of a two-state solution with the Palestinians, but did not call for a Palestinian state — nor did Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a later interview.
There were anti-Netanyahu protests outside. Earlier Wednesday, Breitbart News noted that Trident DMG, a Democratic Party-aligned public relations firm, had not denied playing a role in organizing the protests.
A group linked to the Israeli opposition had hired Trident DMG for help with U.S. advocacy earlier this month.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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