A week ago, Israel Hayom editor-in-chief Boaz Bismuth warned Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that this was not the right time to pay an official state visit to Washington, because of the Afghanistan catastrophe. On Thursday, it turned out that President Biden's bad luck was on a roll. The bad results were arriving one after another, each one leading to disaster.
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For Israel, it's not good when a meeting between heads of state is postponed or not held. You could argue about whether such a major terrorist attack like the one in Kabul should have caused a meeting between the president and the prime minister of Israel to be cancelled. I can't remember any postponement like this one; it sends the message that the prime minister of Israel is irrelevant.
Bennett has wound up in an embarrassing situation. The president is dealing with a serious crisis of strategy and security, so he's staying close in order to handle it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has her own crisis in Afghanistan, which prompted her to cancel a scheduled trip to Israel and stay behind to steer her ship. It appears that the prime minister of Israel is the only one who has no crisis or any pressing problem at home; there is no raging pandemic, or Gaza Strip, and one deals with Iran in Washington.
But a historical review of meetings between prime ministers and American presidents underscores the difference and makes clear why the meeting isn't a top priority for Biden. Bennett didn't come to meet with the president as a leader, but rather as an envoy of a certain group in Israel. He has no personal contribution to make. One could easily imagine a situation in which former President Trump – because of the emergency situation – might have wanted to meet with former Prime Minister Netanyahu to update him and consult, and one could also image Bush J. meeting with former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon after a similar attack.
Most analysts stressed that the meeting was important simply because it was being held. It seems as if the meeting has now become less important. This is a real-time example of how Israel's agenda, is not the US president's top concern. It also underscores the mistake of various veteran defense and security officials who think that Iran is the world's problem. Israel needs to work together with the US.
The fundamental problem is that the US, under Biden's Democratic administration, has changed almost unrecognizably. It is moving in a bad direction, as least as far as Israel is concerned. The Israeli government is too interested in forming close ties with the Biden administration, but from the visit itself and the new government in Israel, the Americans can understand that the Israelis aren't in a rush to take action in Iran, no matter what rhetoric Bennett employs. Israelis had an activist prime minister who brought the entire world, including Russia, around Israel's interest against Iran, and even launched notable operations – the Americans think – and yet still opted to replace him. It seems as if they don't feel at ease sitting in the passenger's seat.
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