The US leader greeted Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Acting Prime Minister Yair Lapid upon the arrival of Air Force One at Ben Gurion Airport on Wednesday afternoon. He chose to fist bump rather than shake hands with Israeli officials during the red carpet reception because of what the White House said was concern over the rise in Covid cases. Ahead of Biden’s trip, senior Israeli officials told reporters that the two countries would issue a broad communique called the “Jerusalem Declaration,” which would take a tough stance on Iran’s nuclear program and affirm Israel’s right to defend himself. In his opening remarks, Biden recalled that his first visit to the country was as a young senator in 1973, just weeks before the Yom Kippur War broke out with Egypt and Syria. At the time, Israel and imperial Iran were still allies, and Egypt and Jordan were still hostile to the majority Jewish state. “We will continue to promote Israel’s integration in the region, and the relationship between the US and Israel is deeper and stronger in my view than ever before,” 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 Israel. . For Biden’s 10th trip, and first as president, Israel enjoys unprecedented positive relations with Arab countries: the Abraham Accords, Donald Trump’s major foreign policy achievement, normalized relations with the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan two years ago. Like Israel, Saudi Arabia – the geopolitical base of the Sunni Muslim world – fears the growing drone and missile capabilities of Iran and its proxies in the region. Calling Biden’s visit a “journey of peace,” Herzog said, “Today, winds of peace are blowing from northern Africa across the Mediterranean to the Gulf … from the Holy Land to the Hejaz.” The Israeli-Palestinian peace process, however, remains moribund. At the inauguration, 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 it was “not in the immediate future.” . He will travel to Bethlehem in the occupied Palestinian territories to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday. Palestinian leaders have been angered by Washington’s failure to curb Israeli settlement building, as well as the administration’s broken promise to reopen the US consulate to Palestinians in Jerusalem after Trump recognized the divided city as Israel’s capital. Biden has not overturned that decision. The US president also sidestepped a request to meet with the family of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, who was likely killed by Israeli sniper fire in May. The family — which has accused the Biden administration of siding with Israel after the State Department said it would not push Israel to continue the criminal investigation — has been invited to Washington for talks. On Wednesday, Biden is scheduled to inspect Israel’s new Iron Beam anti-drone laser technology and visit Yad Vashem, the country’s official Holocaust memorial. He will hold one-on-one meetings with Lapid and Herzog on Thursday, as well as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is seeking a 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 afternoon. The president’s stops in Israel and the Palestinian territories are widely seen as secondary to his trip to the Saudi city of Jeddah on Friday. Biden called the kingdom a “pariah” over the 2018 killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, but has been forced to reconnect with the Saudi royal family as part of efforts to stabilize oil markets rocked by the war in Ukraine and stop U.S. shift of the Gulf state towards the spheres of influence of China and Russia.
