Israel’s current government is one of the most extreme in 50 years, US President Joe Biden said in an interview with CNN published on Sunday.
"This is one of the most extreme cabinets I've seen and I go back to Golda Meir," he said.Biden’s remark came in response to a question as to why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to be invited to the White House. The president had previously said he would not invite Netanyahu in the context of publicly criticizing the Israeli government’s judicial reform plan in March.
This time, Biden pointed out that President Isaac Herzog is expected to visit next week, and said that “Bibi, I think, is trying to work through his existing problems in terms of his coalition.”
Among those problems, are his cabinet’s “extreme” positions related to the Palestinians, while Biden said he is “one of those who believe Israel's ultimate security rests in a two-state solution.”
Speaking days after the major IDF antiterrorism raid on Jenin, a hotbed of terrorist activity that the Palestinian Authority has failed to quell, Biden said that the current Israeli government compounds on the problem of the PA’s weakness.
“I think that the fact that the Palestinian Authority has lost its credibility, not necessarily because of what Israel's done, just because it's just lost its credibility, number one, and, number two, created a vacuum for extremism in the— among the Palestinians…There are some very extreme elements,” Biden said. “So, it's not all Israel now in the West Bank, all Israel’s problem, but they are a part of the problem, and particularly those individuals in the cabinet who say, ‘We can settle anywhere we want. They have no right to be here, etc.’”
The president said that his administration talks to Jerusalem regularly, and that he is “trying to tamp down what’s going on.”
“Hopefully, Bibi will continue to move toward moderation and change.”
President Joe Biden
Biden administration figures have avoided meeting with ministers from the right flank of Israel’s governing coalition, the Religious Zionist Party and Otzma Yehudit, including those in positions that often meet their American counterparts under normal circumstances, such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
The US president's remarks came three weeks after Israel advanced plans for 4,600 homes in Judea and Samaria, which drew sharp criticism from Washington and beyond.
Likud MK Danny Danon responded to Biden's comments on Sunday evening, tweeting "I respect the US, our great friend overseas, but the policy of the State of Israel will be determined only by the government in Jerusalem that was democratically elected by the people of Israel."
"The American people understand very well that in a democratic country policy is determined only by an elected government,” he added.
A senior Likud member remarked that it is too bad Biden "didn't mention that the extremist government in Jerusalem helped the Palestinian Authority with its decisive action against the infrastructure belonging to terrorists who had expelled [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas's men from Jenin."
Israeli-Saudi normalization still far off
The US president also commented on the prospects of Israel-Saudi Arabia normalization.
"Quite frankly, I don't think [the Saudis] have much of a problem with Israel,” he said. “And whether or not we would provide a means by which they could have civilian nuclear power and/or be a guarantor of their security, that's - I think that's a little way off."
Riyadh has asked for a defense treaty and a civilian nuclear program in US-led negotiations for them to establish diplomatic relations with Jerusalem.
The US president defended his visit to Saudi Arabia last year despite his criticism of the kingdom’s human rights record, mentioning Israeli overflights as an achievement resulting from that trip.
Biden also compared military aid the US plans to provide for Ukraine to that it gives to Israel.
Ukraine cannot join NATO while it is at war with Russia, the US president said, but “in the meantime, and I have spoken with [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky at length about this, the US would be ready while the process is going on to provide security a la the security we provide for Israel, providing weaponry and the capacity to defend themselves.”
Reuters, Tovah Lazaroff, and Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.