Biden, just like Bennett, doesn’t want Netanyahu to return to power in Israel

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The conditions of Friday’s meeting between Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and U.S. President Joe Biden, which was delayed by a day, were worse than anticipated. Biden was preoccupied by the harsh implications of his most serious foreign policy crisis, in the wake of the American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the deadly suicide bombing in Kabul.

For Bennett, the rest of the cards likewise didn’t exactly fall into place. The rescheduled meeting took place not during prime time in Israel, but slightly before. The television broadcasts suffered from technical glitches that made it hard for viewers at home to understand the leaders, whose insistence on wearing face masks only compounded the problem. The prime minister’s remarks were disproportionately longer than those of the president, and he appeared to be nearly as excited as a bar mitzvah boy. There were even a few infelicities in his English, despite Bennett’s having grown up speaking the language.

All of these are trivial, however, as are the opposition’s crocodile tears over the summit’s broadcast from Washington causing violation of Shabbat in Israel (a matter that didn’t bother Bennett’s predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, on similar occasions). Bennett was right to extend his stay by two days to avoid desecrating Shabbat with his return flight, and to hold the meeting at a time that was slightly more convenient for his host.

LISTEN: Bennett meets Biden. This could be Israel’s worst-case scenario

It’s obvious that all of the announcements and the leaks that followed – about the immediate chemistry and the new and wonderful friendship between the two men, the fact that Biden invited Bennett for coffee, the face-to-face meeting that went on for longer than expected – were all part of the usual script for such events. The important difference is in the declared opening of a new page between the two states, after Netanyahu’s tumultuous relations with two Democratic presidents and the sometimes dangerous alliance he forged with the last Republican president.

It’s enough to recall Netanyahu’s last two visits with Donald Trump. First, the presentation of Trump’s preposterous Middle East peace plan in January 2020, which was accompanied by the Israeli entourage’s (false) promises of “sovereignty on Sunday,” through the annexation of the West Bank. And in September, the only positive thing to come out of the Trump initiative, the signing of the normalization with the United Arab Emirates and with Bahrain. Even that somehow became a COVID-19 super-spreader event. Not only is the page new, but once again Washington and Jerusalem are reading from the same one. Administration officials are making an effort to help Bennett for one simple reason: They, like Bennett, don’t want Netanyahu to return to power in Israel.

At the declaratory level, Israel’s new government can be satisfied with the correction of Biden’s public line on Iran. At their White House meeting in June, during the farewell visit to Washington of former Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Biden promised that Iran will not become a nuclear power “on my watch.” On Friday he went farther, expressing America’s commitment to ensuring that “Iran never develops a nuclear weapon,” adding that “if diplomacy fails, we’re ready to turn to other options.”

On the practical level, it’s doubtful the new Iran strategy that Bennett said he presented to the Americans will carry much weight in their eyes. As far as is known, the administration still hopes to reach a new nuclear agreement with Iran. Its eventual signing will depend largely on Tehran, which seems increasingly less enthusiastic about the possibility. At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s promise that the administration will work to build a “longer and stronger agreement” – that is, with closer supervision of Iran’s nuclear project for a greater duration – has not yet been explained in detail. For now, it seems unlikely that any deal will be signed.

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On the Palestinian issue, Bennett navigated nimbly within the limited constraints of his ragtag coalition. In an interview with The New York Times published last week, he promised not to annex territory in the West Bank, but also said his government will not establish a Palestinian state. The latter part of that statement doesn’t gladden the hearts of the Democrats, but as long as the Palestinians are also less than enthused about resuming negotiations, the Americans are unlikely to rush into pressuring Bennett.

The danger, as usual, is that developments on the ground will reshuffle the deck. Another Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, or a gradual disintegration of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank in connection with an end of the 85-year-old Mahmoud Abbas’ rule, could force the Americans into greater intervention and even into renewing the pressure on Israel.

U.S. President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C., yesterday.NICHOLAS KAMM – AFP

Bennett has nothing to give Biden on the Afghan question, other than a sincere sharing of the Americans’ sorrow. The president made a conscious choice to leave Afghanistan after 20 years of a nonstop war on terror. He was aware of the possible consequences, although apparently the administration misjudged the endurance of the ousted Afghan government. Biden certainly doesn’t need advice from Israelis on fighting terror – not even from Netanyahu, despite the claims of some of his foolish followers.

On the other hand, Bennett is likely to return from Washington with deeper insight into the No. 1 foreign-relations issue for the United States: competition with China. The era in which Israel, under Netanyahu, somehow managed to have its cake and eat it too (a strategic partnership with America, business with China) is nearly over.

The new administration will demand from Israel tighter restrictions on technological cooperation with Beijing, greater transparency and perhaps also that it forgo some of the infrastructure projects that are under consideration. Israel can no longer sell good intentions to the Americans while doing what it pleases with the Chinese. The sooner Bennett understands this and acts accordingly, the better. And so, perhaps, the chances will also increase that he can better coordinate positions with Biden on what matters most to Israel: dealing with Iran.