Joe Biden has said the U.S. is committed to Israel’s security when it arrives in Tel Aviv for the first leg of a three-day visit to the Middle East, a trip focused on deepening majority state ties Jew with the Arab world as the region clashes. a common enemy in Iran.
The U.S. leader was greeted by Israeli President Isaac Herzog and caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid on the arrival of Air Force One at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday afternoon. He chose to punch instead of shaking hands with Israeli officials during the red carpet welcome, so the White House said it was concerned about the rise in Covid cases.
Prior to Biden’s trip, senior Israeli officials told reporters that the two countries would issue a comprehensive statement entitled “The Jerusalem Declaration,” which would take a hard line on Iran’s nuclear program and reaffirm Israel’s right to defend yourself.
In his opening remarks, Biden recalled that his first visit to the country had been as a young senator in 1973, a few weeks before Yom Kippur’s war with Egypt and Syria broke out. At that time, Israel and imperial Iran were still allies, and Egypt and Jordan were still hostile to the majority Jewish state.
“We will continue to make progress in Israel’s integration into the region and the relationship between the United States and Israel is deeper and stronger in my view than ever,” the president said.
Leaving Israel, Air Force One will make a first direct flight from Tel Aviv to Saudi Arabia amid efforts to build a relationship between the Jewish state and the conservative Gulf kingdom, which does not officially recognize the existence of Israel.
For Biden’s tenth trip, and first as president, Israel enjoys unprecedented positive relations with Arab countries: the Abraham Accords, Donald Trump’s major foreign policy success, normalized relations with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan two years ago.
Like Israel, Saudi Arabia, the geopolitical axis of the Sunni Muslim world, fears the growing drone and missile capacity of Iran and its representatives in the region.
Herzog said Biden’s visit was a “peace trip,” he said: “Today winds of peace are blowing from North Africa across the Mediterranean to the gulf … from the Holy Land to the Hejaz.”
The Israeli-Palestinian peace process, however, remains dying. At the opening ceremony, Biden said he believed a two-state solution was “the best way to ensure the future meaningful measure of freedom, prosperity and democracy for Israelis and Palestinians,” but that he knew that “it is not short term”. ”.
He will travel to Bethlehem, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, on Friday to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinian leaders have been outraged by what they say is Washington’s failure to curb the construction of Israeli settlements, as well as the administration’s unfulfilled promise to reopen a U.S. consulate to Palestinians in Jerusalem after Trump recognized the city divided as the capital of Israel. Biden has not revoked that decision.
The U.S. president has also evaded the request to reunite with the family of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, who probably died as a result of the Israeli sniper fire in May. The family, who accused the Biden administration of being on Israel’s side after the state department said it would not push Israel to launch a criminal investigation, has been invited to talks in Washington.
On Wednesday, Biden plans to inspect Israel’s new Iron Beam anti-drone laser technology and visit Yad Vashem, the country’s official Holocaust memorial. He will hold individual meetings with Lapid and Herzog on Thursday, as well as with former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is looking to return to office in the country’s fifth election in less than four years this November.
Biden will also attend the opening ceremony of the Maccabiah Games, a sports tournament for Israeli and Jewish athletes from around the world, on Thursday evening.
The president’s stops in Israel and the Palestinian territories are widely considered of secondary importance to his trip to the Saudi city of Jeddah on Friday.
Biden called the kingdom an “outcast” for the assassination of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, but has been forced to reconnect with the Saudi royal family as part of efforts to stabilize shaken oil markets for the war in Ukraine and stop the drift of the Gulf state into the spheres of influence of China and Russia.