At Climate Summit, a Chill Breeze from Biden Ruffles the Israelis

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

Prime Minister Bennett’s list of world leaders with whom to confer at Glasgow is impressive but one name is missing from his dance card — that of the leader of Israel’s most important world ally.

There’s little difference between President Biden and Mr. Bennett over issues at the center of the Conference of Parties known as COP26. Both leaders flew to Scotland heading oversized delegations. Both took the obligatory photo in between the hosts, Prime Minister Johnson and Secretary General Guterres. Oh, and both vow to reduce emissions and do their utmost to combat climate change.

So why is Bennett conferring with the likes of Mr. Johnson, President Macron, Prime Minister Modi, Australia’s Scott Morrison, Italy’s Draghi, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa, Honduras Hernández, and NATO chief Stolenberg — and not Mr. Biden?

Mr. Bennett did have a chance to hash over top issues when he visited the White House back in August. Since then high level Israeli envoys have been showing up at Washington on an almost weekly basis.

Also true, the leader of the free world has a schedule at Glasgow that is hectic. Oh, and no one would exclude the possibility of a nod in the hallway, a handshake in passing, or a chance exchange of winks between the Israeli and American leaders.

Yet the omission of a formal meeting is intriguing in light the noise from the Bennet government about repairing relations between Israel and the Democratic Party. Mr. Bennett and foreign minister, Yair Lapid, are promising to reorient Israel’s policies in Washington toward bipartisanship, vowing to turn away from what they paint as their predecessor’s uber-Republicanism.

Despite Jerusalem’s praise of Mr. Biden’s friendship to the Jewish state, though, a chill in relations with Washington is clearly in the air this fall.

Secretary Blinken’s State Department, which has been rank with anti-Zionist sentiments since the establishment of the Jewish state, is leading the charge. Jerusalem and Israeli West Bank cities are once again highlighted as top impediments to peace.

Mr. Blinken last week had a “tense” phone call with Israel’s defense minister, Benny Gantz, calling his approval of 2,800 new housing units inside existing Jewish settlements “unacceptable.” The content of the call was immediately leaked to Israeli and American reporters.

Washington had earlier frowned upon Mr. Gantz’s designation as terrorist six Palestinian Arab organizations affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Washington has long recognized the PFLP as a terrorist organization. Yet it insists the six groups are part of Palestinian “civil society” even as evidence of symbiotic ties between them and the terror organization is abundant.

Then there’s the push by the Biden administration to reopen an American consulate in Jerusalem to serve Palestinian Arabs. A long time American consulate was shut by Donald Trump when he moved America’s embassy to the Israeli capital. A dedicated section at the new embassy currently caters to Palestinian Arabs services.

Yet Mr. Biden’s push to undo everything Trump now includes the threat of what would be an unprecedented opening of an American consulate at a city where we already have an embassy. Beyond blatant waste of taxpayer money, the move is also a violation of the Vienna Convention of diplomatic relations, which says that a host country has to approve the opening of foreign embassies or consulates within its territory.

The multi-faction Bennett-Lapid government opposes the opening of a consulate, arguing it would signal a division of Israel’s united capital. Adding insult to injury, the proposed American consulate would be housed in western Jerusalem.

Most ominously, Bidenites seem giddy for a return to the nuclear deal with Iran. Trying to smooth over disagreements, Messrs. Biden and Bennett came up with a diplomatic formula most recently repeated by Mr. Blinken on the Sunday news shows.

The formula reckons that everyone prefers diplomacy while vowing to prepare an unspecified “plan B” if talks collapse. Meantime, fuzzy diplomatic language rarely succeeds in hiding disagreements. On the one hand, after a long winks and nods period the Islamic Republic last week announced a plan to return to Vienna by the end of November, to begin indirect talks about talks.

On the other hand, Jerusalem last week publicized a photo of an American B1-b bomber flying over Israel on its way to the Gulf. Escorted by an Israeli F-15, the flight was said to represent a “tacit threat” to Iran.

So even as the two sides use similar words, they quietly disagree over Iran. Mr. Biden clearly believes in “diplomacy” with a regime that leads him by the nose, while Israelis prepare numerous plan Bs.

A diplomatic cold shoulder mightn’t reverse global warming, but despite admirable attempts at friendship, Israelis increasingly feel a chill from Washington.

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Twitter @bennyavni


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