The White House has finally invited Benjamin Netanyahu to visit the US after months of snubbing the Israeli prime minister over his government’s creeping annexation of the West Bank and deepening oppression of the Palestinians.
Netanyahu’s office said President Joe Biden extended the invitation in a call between the two leaders on Monday ahead of a visit to Washington by the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, this week that had thrown a spotlight on to the shunning of the prime minister.
But no date has been set and the timing of Netanyahu’s arrival is likely to be influenced by whether the most rightwing government in Israel’s history presses ahead with laws to curb the judiciary’s powers, expand settlements and open the way to greater colonisation of the occupied territories. The Israeli statement notably did not say Netanyahu was invited to the White House, opening the possibility of a meeting in a politically less significant venue, such as on the sidelines of the UN.
Herzog’s post is largely ceremonial and his visit to Washington was arranged to mark Israel’s 75th birthday. But his meeting at the White House on Tuesday, and address to Congress the following day, have taken on added political significance after Biden earlier this month described Netanyahu’s government as containing “some of the most extreme” cabinet ministers in the country’s history, such as the far-right Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have been accused of promoting Jewish supremacy.
The visit highlighted divisions in the Democratic party over Israel after several members of Congress said they would boycott Herzog’s speech.
Among them is the chair of the influential Democratic Progressive Caucus, Representative Pramila Jayapal, who drew strong criticism from within her own party after she called Israel a “racist state” at a conference at the weekend. Leading Democrats, including the party’s leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, issued a statement in defence of Israel. Jayapal then qualified her remarks to say she does “not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist”.
“I do, however, believe that Netanyahu’s extreme rightwing government has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies and that there are extreme racists driving that policy within the leadership of the current government,” she said.
Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Cori Bush also plan to boycott Herzog’s speech. Bush said Congress should not be giving a platform to the president of a country “responsible for enforcing an apartheid state and rampantly abusing the rights of Palestinians”.
Others have called for Biden to tell Herzog there are conditions to continued US support.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group J Street, said Biden should set conditions on the US’s large military aid to Israel to ensure it is not used to further entrench control of the occupied territories.
‘There need to be some clear guidelines and restrictions about how it can be used. That military aid should not used in any way that deepens the occupation, that protects the settlements, that is used to enforce evictions or other punitive measures in the West Bank on Palestinians,” he said.
Although influential rightwing pro-Israel groups would strongly oppose any such move, opinion polls show that a majority of Jewish Americans back conditions on US aid to Israel, which runs at $3.8bn a year and totals more US assistance than given to any other country since the second world war.
J Street is also pressuring the Biden administration to lift its blanket protection of Israel at the United Nations and in other international bodies.
Ben-Ami welcomed what he said were “clear signals” from Biden that there would be a cost to relations with the US if the Israeli government does not change direction.
“He’s been cautious but he’s also been very blunt and direct. He said this is the most extreme government Israel has ever had and made it very clear that this is not the direction that Israel should head down if it wants to maintain the kind of relationship it’s had, grounded in shared interests and values,” he said.
But Zaha Hassan, a former member of the Palestinian delegation at peace talks and a legal specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Biden was only seeking a return to the status quo.
“This Israeli government has really dropped the mask on the intentions that Israel has towards the West Bank. That’s making it very uncomfortable for the Biden administration to be able to engage, in particular on an important priority for him, which is to see Saudi Arabia normalise with Israel,” she said.
“This administration is concerned about the actions of, and the statements made by, people like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. But does the administration genuinely have an interest in pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace? I don’t think so. They don’t see that the environment is conducive to any kind of big breakthroughs and so they’re just interested in stabilisation. The Biden administration’s agenda is really limited and their appetite for upsetting the relationship with Israel is very limited.”
