Netanyahu Receives His First Call From Biden

President Biden meets Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel in March 2016 (Wikipedia)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received his first phone call from President Joe Biden on February 16. Given that Biden called almost a dozen world leaders before Netanyahu, some observers view this month-long delay as a deliberate slight against the current leader of Israel.

Israel has long been seen as the most reliable ally of the U.S. in the Middle East. Since its founding, Israel has cultivated a strong partnership with the U.S. and, as such, it has received much attention from past administrations. Although Israel benefited from arms sales and economic aid, the traditional symbol of its close ties to the United States has been the new U.S. president calling the Israel prime minister before most other world leaders. 

In recent years, however, Netanyahu cemented a particularly close relationship with the Republican Party and former President Donald Trump. In 2017, Netanyahu received his first courtesy call from Trump a mere two days after the inauguration. As a result of the Trump administration’s tacit approval, Israel embarked on projects such as building settlements on Palestinian land, which drew criticism from the international community and organizations including the United Nations. The U.S. government’s treatment of Netanyahu and Israel under Trump culminated with the U.S. declining to block a 2016 UN condemnation of Israel’s settlement construction in the West Bank.

Many pundits have remarked that the Biden administration will bring about a chillier relationship with Israel. Having observed Netanyahu’s embrace of Trump, Biden’s delayed phone call may be indicative of his displeasure with the Israeli prime minister’s close ties to the former president. 

Both supporters and critics of Netanyahu also believe that Israel can no longer count on the U.S. to support endeavors such as the Israeli settlement of Palestinian territories. The Biden administration is expected to emphasize human rights and diplomacy; an intent signaled most recently by his halting of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in light of the country’s military operations against Houthi rebels in Yemen. Nor is Israel likely to obtain a promise for hardline U.S. opposition to an Iranian nuclear deal. Netanyahu has firmly opposed the prospect of re-negotiating Iranian uranium enrichment, having publicly lobbied against it in 2015.

Lacking overwhelming support from the new U.S. administration, facing a corruption scandal, and nearing the Israeli general elections, Netanyahu’s position as prime minister appears increasingly uncertain. Having held the office for nearly 15 years, he is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Nevertheless, in the last few election cycles, Netanyahu and his party have struggled to maintain a stable government coalition in parliament, resulting in four elections over just the past two years. 

Therefore, many observers have seen the delayed call to Israel’s leader as a potential point of concern for Netanyahu. Danny Danon, a former Israeli ambassador to the UN, recently tweeted a list of countries that Biden had called before he rang Israel. Yossi Melman, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, also noted that Biden’s “thundering silence” signifies that Israel should no longer expect unconditional backing from its most important ally.

However, both the U.S. and Israeli administrations have denied the occurrence of a “snub” between Biden and Netanyahu. The White House claimed after Biden’s call that the two men have a strong relationship, and Netanyahu’s office tweeted that their conversation was “warm and friendly.”