Biden told the UN the Palestinians can wait, giving Israel’s Bennett breathing space

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It is unlikely that U.S. President Joe Biden’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday surprised Israel’s leadership. On the two core issues of Iran and the Palestinians, Biden made public messages that had already become familiar over months of dialogue between Washington and Jerusalem.

For Prime Minister Naftali Bennett the important takeaway from Biden’s speech was the public declaration that the two-state vision is not feasible at this time: “We’re a long way from that goal at this moment.”

This statement is important to Bennett for two reasons: It increases his government’s chances for survival and reduces pressure from his left-wing coalition partners and the international community to make significant advancements with the Palestinian Authority.

Biden’s announcement isn’t only important for Bennett; it encapsulates a shared interest of the PA, the U.S. administration, and Bennett’s administration that there is no point in promoting a major peace process in the next few years. In fact, senior PA officials have asked Israel and the United States to advance a long list of economic moves “under the radar,” instead of by way of an open peace process.

Israel has already approved an additional 15,000 work permits and a major increase in building permit quotas for Palestinians as part of an attempt to ease economic distress in the PA. At the same time, since it entered office in January, the Biden administration has aimed to redirect its occupation with the Middle East to the coronavirus crisis and China. In Israel, the Bennett-Lapid government is rooted, in part, on the understanding that no progress would be made in the peace process with the Palestinians, so as to prevent tensions between coalition partners which would lead to its unraveling.

On the issue of Iran too, Biden’s speech did not throw any surprises Israel’s way. In fact, his central statement — that the United States seeks to return to the nuclear deal with Iran (“We’re prepared to return to full compliance if Iran does the same”) — puts the ball back in the court of the new Iranian government. But in Jerusalem, the assessment made after the speech was that the U.S. administration – like Israeli intelligence officials – lacks concrete information as to Iran’s real intentions with respect to returning to the negotiating table and a deal when that process draws to a close.

Even though Iran has in recent weeks been signaling its willingness to negotiate, an Israeli source warned of the possibility that Iran intends to draw out negotiations for quite a long time in such a way that will enable it to make progress in its nuclear program at the same time. In any case, a senior official recently said that re-signing the nuclear deal could help Israel’s efforts to delay Iranian uranium enrichment. Israel will not ruin things with the United States if it decides to return to the agreement, but at the same time it is looking for action in other channels that will make it hard for the Ayatollahs’ regime to arm itself with weapons that can carry nuclear weapons, while at the same time keeping Iran at a fixed distance from becoming a nuclear threshold state, he said.

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Israel has been worried for quite some time by the United States’ refusal to publicly present a military option that would threaten Iran and deter it from continuing to develop its nuclear weapons program. And while Biden repeated his commitment that Iran will not obtain nuclear weapons, he hinted throughout his speech that the United States is not interested in military conflicts and instead wants cooperation under peaceful conditions.

But one thing Biden said in his speech worried Israeli leaders: He called for the turning of a new leaf in relations between the United States and the United Nations, in the wake of the harsh line taken by his predecessor Donald Trump. Biden emphasized his commitment to strengthen cooperation between his administration and the rest of the world on a long list of issues, including the battle against the coronavirus. But the UN and its institutions have a sharp bias against Israel, and in Jerusalem there is fear that such a warm embrace from Biden will grant anti-Israeli decisions at the UN a problematic influence.