After two days of a warm and friendly visit, US President Joe Biden is expected to leave Israel this afternoon and take off with his huge entourage to Saudi Arabia.
The feelings here upon his departure are somewhat mixed: on the one hand it was an impressive demonstration of friendship towards Israel on the part of the leader of the great power in the world. On the other hand, the parties remain divided on the most burning issue in the visit: how to stop the Iranian nuclear race.
Despite the president’s advanced age, it ended up being an event-filled visit. The presidential plane landed here on Wednesday afternoon. His entourage included about 500 escorts, including Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and hundreds of advisers, aides, diplomats and Secret Service personnel. The liver prevailed in the area and the corona virus.The reception speeches were delivered under the scorching sun, and government ministers were forced to sit while waiting for the president and during the ceremony with their faces dripping with sweat.
President Yitzhak Herzog and Prime Minister Yair Lapid tried to be brief, but the American president extended his speech and asked as soon as he landed to convey the messages he wanted to convey in his journey. “As president, I am proud to say that our relationship with the State of Israel is deeper and stronger than ever,” Biden declared. “During this visit, we will strengthen our connection even further. We will strengthen our connection with Israel and the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security, and we will be partners with Israel in the most advanced defense systems in the world.”
This is Biden’s tenth visit to Israel, and his first as President of the United States. On the burning Iranian issue, however, he conveyed a message on the Palestinian issue: “We must also discuss my deep and ongoing commitment to a two-state solution. “This is the best way to ensure equality, freedom, prosperity and democracy for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” Biden said.
The American president was careful not to shake the hands of his receptionists, due to the fear of being infected in Corona. With President Yitzhak Herzog, Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Deputy Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Biden punched them, and more than once patted them on the back for expressing affection. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told Biden: “You did something amazing, you showed real courage.”
When he met former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was sitting next to the cabinet ministers in the group photo, the two exchanged a long handshake. “You know I love you,” Biden told him warmly in the face of the somewhat ironic situation in which someone who had served for years as Israeli prime minister does not now belong to the circle of decision-makers. “Joe, you are wonderful,” Netanyahu replied.
After the joint photo shoot, Biden got into his car, part of a convoy of more than a hundred Israeli and American vehicles. He drove to a closed compound where he was presented with the means of the Israeli multilayer defense system, including the innovative “Magen Or” system for laser missile interception. Israel hopes that a taste of Israeli revolutionary technologies will inspire the president of the friendly power to invest more money to help develop similar technologies.
Later in the first day of his visit here, Biden visited the Yad Vashem institution and met two Holocaust survivors, who had an exciting conversation with him. He was accompanied by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and the sending of the US administration to fight anti-Semitism, historian Prof. Deborah Lipstadt. Like incumbent Prime Minister Lapid, who gave up a visit to the Western Wall on the eve of his inauguration, and unlike previous US presidents like Trump and Obama, Biden did not visit the Western Wall plaza. At the end of the visit to Yad Vashem, the American President enjoys a free evening in the Presidential Suite at the King David Hotel.
Yesterday, the president’s agenda was busy and full of policy meetings. Biden first met with Prime Minister Lapid and made no secret of his intention to advance the nuclear deal with Iran. Lapid apparently responded with disappointment.
The two then signed a “Jerusalem Declaration” in front of the media, which anchors the United States’ commitment to Israel’s security and includes an explicit US commitment not to allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
After the signing, the prime minister said, with some defiance towards his guest: “The only thing that will stop Iran is if it knows that further development of the nuclear program will cause the free world to exercise its power. The only way to stop it is to put a credible military threat on the table.” At the end, Lapid addressed Baidan and said: “From Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, you travel directly to Saudi Arabia. Your visit to Saudi Arabia is important to our security and the future of prosperity in the Middle East. Together with you we send a message of peace to all peoples of the region.
In the afternoon, Biden and Lapid held a virtual meeting with the presidents of India and the United Arab Emirates, at the end of which the two held a joint press conference. Biden took the opportunity to preach for the implementation of the “two state solution”. Lapid refrained from mentioning the matter in his speech, but in response to a question from an Arab journalist, he made it clear that he did aspire to such a solution. This was the first time in several years that the Israeli prime minister had expressed public support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
After the press conference held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, Biden was scheduled for a twenty-minute conversation with opposition leader Netanyahu. The name of the main issue was also Iran. Netanyahu told a high-ranking guest that in his opinion there is no escape from military action against the Iranian nuclear program.
Biden later attended a solemn ceremony at the President’s House and was awarded the “Presidential Medal” by President Herzog. “You are the 15th President of the United States, and my family and I are privileged to work with him,” Herzog told him. Come true, it’s almost a miracle. “The nation that flourished in the desert and built the Iron Dome, that made peace and can do it again, a nation that will not sit alone, because as long as the United States exists, you will never be alone.”
Later in the evening, Biden joined the podium at the opening ceremony of the 21st Maccabiah at Teddy Stadium, and had to deal with a minor technical malfunction when the stadium’s electrical system failed and shut down. Biden spoke with members of the American delegation to Maccabiah and told them about his past as an athlete during his college days; He then returned to the King David Hotel in central Jerusalem, thus concluding the President’s second day in Israel.
This morning, before taking off for Saudi Arabia, Biden is expected to visit Bethlehem and meet with Abu Mazen there. He then left by helicopter for Ben Gurion Airport, where a small farewell ceremony will be held in the afternoon with the participation of Prime Minister Lapid and President Herzog.