Herzog and Biden stress US-Israel closeness ahead of nailbiter elections in both countries

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli president Isaac Herzog had a message and caught to it: Israel and america are on the identical web page irrespective of who wins elections in each international locations subsequent month.

“We’ve elections in Israel, and also you’re having midterm elections in america,” Herzog informed President Joe Biden within the public portion of their assembly Wednesday within the Oval Workplace. “However one factor is evident — and I believe this go to epitomizes it finest — is that our friendship and powerful bond transcends all political variations and opinions and events.”

Herzog made the identical level Tuesday night when he met with Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Home of Representatives speaker who’s scrambling to protect her slim majority in opposition to the percentages in midterm elections that favor Republicans. He made it once more when he spoke privately with Jewish leaders on Tuesday, when he made calls to Republican congressional leaders and when he spoke to the media on the White Home driveway.

An official near Herzog mentioned the Israeli president was impressed by how deeply dedicated Biden was to combating antisemitism; discuss of its intensification in recent times dominated a lot of their assembly. “There’s little doubt it preoccupies the president,” the official mentioned.

Nevertheless a lot Herzog insisted that the U.S. Israel-relationship transcends partisanship, his go to amounted to an attraction to each electorates to maintain the sitting authorities in place,

The Biden administration needs to strengthen its pro-Israel bona fides in a season when pro-Israel votes might assist determine the Senate. In the meantime, Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid is keen to show to Israelis that he handles the U.S. file higher than his predecessor and would-be successor, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Republicans campaigning in states the place pro-Israel voters could play a deciding function in not less than three Senate races are attacking Democrats as abandoning Israel. Pelosi and Biden cozying as much as Israel’s president sends a message that Democrats won’t be outdone in defending the Jewish state. Each Pelosi and Biden have long-standing friendships with Herzog, and each launched their conferences with heat recollections of visits previous.

“I used to be bragging to the president — I’ve been offered by the president with the Israeli Presidential Medal of Freedom which is behind me over there,” Biden mentioned within the Oval Workplace, referring to his go to to Israel this summer season. “We’re very happy with that. So thanks for that honor.”

After her assembly with Herzog, Pelosi introduced that she and Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Jewish New York Democrat who’s Senate majority chief, invited Herzog to handle a joint session of Congress subsequent spring, when Israel will mark 75 years of independence.

“America Congress has been proud to face in solidarity with Israel on a bipartisan and bicameral foundation,” their letter to Herzog mentioned.

And whereas Herzog’s standing as president ostensibly locations him above the political fray — the one-time chief of Israel’s Labor Occasion formally give up the social gathering the day he was sworn in as president — he’s near the federal government led by Lapid, whose success subsequent month would hold from returning to energy Netanyahu, Herzog’s former nemesis. In all his appearances, Herzog emphasised the present Israeli authorities’s robust posture in Iran, making a pointed distinction with Netanyahu’s campaign-trail declare that Lapid is just not robustly opposing Biden’s effort to reenter the Iran nuclear deal.

An official near Herzog mentioned the timing of the go to was coincidental; Biden and Herzog, whose shut friendship lengthy predates their presidencies, had initially deliberate to fulfill in September in the course of the United Nations Common Meeting, however the timing didn’t work out.

Nonetheless, as soon as Herzog’s protestations of nonpartisanship had been out of the best way, his speaking factors bolstered a story that the Lapid authorities was a hit story. Biden and Herzog each heralded the signing scheduled Friday of an settlement between Lebanon and Israel figuring out maritime borders. Netanyahu is saying the settlement leaves Israel weak and has accused Lapid of capitulating to American stress.

Biden framed the settlement as a safety success for Lapid that elicited from one in every of Israel’s most implacable enemies within the area an implicit recognition of its existence.

“Tomorrow, Israel and Lebanon are going to signal an settlement to ascertain a everlasting — a everlasting — maritime boundary between  the 2 international locations,” Biden mentioned within the Oval Workplace. “I believe it’s a historic breakthrough — it took a number of braveness so that you can step up and step into it, and it took some actual guts, and I believe it took precept and protracted diplomacy to get it achieved. And I praise you and I praise the federal government.”

Officers from either side additionally targeted on the Biden administration’s efforts to broaden the Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalization agreements between Israel and 4 Arab states. Herzog and Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, met Wednesday. A State Division launch mentioned they “mentioned alternatives to broaden and deepen Israel’s relations with Arab states, in addition to the persevering with unprecedented work of the Negev Discussion board,” a gathering of Israel and Arab allies that Lapid convened earlier this yr. Republicans have accused Biden of all however abandoning the Abraham Accords, which had been struck in the course of the Trump administration.

Herzog, in a public interview on the Atlantic Council places of work with Dan Shapiro, the Obama administration’s ambassador to Israel, unveiled proof reinforcing an American declare that Iran is promoting Russia weaponized drones for its conflict in opposition to Ukraine.

“I wish to level out that Iran has stored on supplying these drones and they’re attacking throughout Ukraine with suicide drones, particular UAVs that are supposed to create havoc in giant scope,” Herzog mentioned.

It was a means for Herzog to drive house the message that Iran for Israel stays an existential risk, which he did once more in his assembly the subsequent day with Biden, when Herzog raised the regime’s lethal response to girls’s rights protesters within the nation.

“That is an instance of the best way Iran is working, crushing its personal residents, transferring towards nuclear weapons and supplying deadly weapons which might be killing harmless residents in Ukraine,” Herzog mentioned. “The Iranian regime might be a significant problem we might be discussing.”

The official near Herzog mentioned that the Israeli chief didn’t really feel the necessity to convey up the Iran nuclear settlement, brokered whereas Biden was vp in 2015 and deserted by former President Donald Trump in 2018. The Biden administration officers made clear that the deal talks had been moribund for now; Iran had turned down a number of U.S. affords to reenter the deal, and the lethal repression of the protests together with Iran’s assist for Russia meant that the deal is just not now a precedence.

Of their assembly Tuesday with Herzog, Jewish leaders requested him in regards to the prospects that Netanyahu would convey into authorities Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist weaned on the teachings of the late racist rabbi Meir Kahane. Herzog demurred, saying he didn’t wish to focus on the make-up of the subsequent coalition till after the election. Some Jewish teams have spoken out in opposition to courting Ben-Gvir, however a quantity have remained silent.