US President Joe Biden, exhausted from the bloody separation from Afghanistan, postponed his meeting with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that day, but couldn't entirely forgo a meeting with the first non-Netanyahu Israeli prime minister in 12 years. Bennett arrived after having already laid out his beliefs to a New York Times interviewer in the form of the famous "Three No's" of Khartoum from September 1967: No to any agreement with the Palestinians, no to negotiations with them, and no to recognition of a Palestinian state.
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Biden, for his part, was ready to go some way to find common ground with his guest, and after some work did – they both used to travel on the same train, years ago.
The American president knows the Middle East very well, both from the years he served on the Senate Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and later as its head, as well as his eight years as vice president. It's clear to him that if Israel does not establish a border between itself and the Palestinians, a Jewish minority will wind up ruling over a Palestinian majority and that will be the end of the concept of the Jewish state – by the doing of the nationalist Right. He was surprised at the timing of Bennett's "no's," but not the content of the interview. It is probable that he's telling himself that a right-wing leader who promises not to take on the US is better than a leader who does not reject a Palestinian state, but does everything to torpedo one.
He could not understand Bennett's political views about the future of Israel as a Jewish state. The Bantustan solution is the closest thing that arose from what was said, and the elderly leader didn't try to argue with that approach in the short time they had. Funding for Iron Dome, the non-rejection of reopening an American consul in east Jerusalem, and upgrading the endless discussion about a visa waiver for Israelis – these were the subjects that replaced the Palestinian question.
When it came to Iran, the understanding is that actions to delay the country's approaching the nuclear threshold would continue. The question of whether the American president is promising that Iran will not have nuclear weapons only so long as he is in office, or will "never" have them, is pathetic. He can only fulfil his promises until his last day in office.
A much more surprising meeting took place in Ramallah between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Defense Minister Benny Gantz. While Bennett's associates are trying to color the meeting as a professional one to find ad hoc solutions, sources close to Gantz made it clear that diplomatic issues had been raised and that the purpose had been to bolster the pragmatic government in Ramallah against the terrorist regime in the Gaza Strip.
If in Washington there was a change in tone, but not essence, in the Abbas-Gantz meeting there was a change in something fundamental. First – the Palestinian leader, who absolutely opposes terrorism, who calls security coordination with Israel "sacred," and understands that peace and cooperation with Israel is in the Palestinians' interests – has become a partner again. The Israeli defense minister who visits him is a political leader who supports, in principle, the two-state solution, and mainly – if the previous Israeli government preferred a Hamas rule because it was easier to portray them as a non-partner, the new government sees Abbas' government, with all its weaknesses, as a partner to be strengthened. The visit to Ramallah, only a few minutes from Jerusalem, was much more important than the visit to Washington.
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