It was first noted when Biden called on president Shimon Peres, his first meeting with an Israel leader. He then explicitly warned Israel against venturing to attack Iran without prior American permission.
Even the oft-repeated American commitment to Israel’s security was delivered with a notable reservation: I can promise the people of Israel that we will confront every security challenge that we will face, said Biden. This statement ruled out unilateral Israel operations in its defense. Forget unilateral, he was saying; from now “we” make the decisions about the level of “security challenge” facing Israel and how to “confront it.” And there is no false modestly about who the senior decision-maker is to be in this “alliance.”
Jerusalem was also taken aback by the US vice president’s assertion that Iran was isolated as never before. A distorting prism appeared to be held up by the Obama administration to justify its backtracking on painful sanctions for Iran. These sanctions were explicitly promised by the White House to Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak in return for Israel’s consent to hold back from striking Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The Biden visit to Israel, therefore, far from meeting its avowed goal of smoothing over the differences between the Obama administration and Israel, has left Jerusalem more distrustful than ever.
No related posts.

