Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is expected to fly to Washington on Tuesday afternoon, but he is already planning a trip to the United Nations next month, his spokesman confirmed.
The UN General Assembly will begin on September 14 this year, and the General Debate, in which national leaders and foreign ministers often give speeches, begins on September 21.
Bennett, who is Orthodox, will be unlikely to participate in the first day of the General Debate because it is also the first day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, but the debate is usually several days long.
On September 22, the UN will be holding Durban IV, an event in honor of the 20th anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism. Israel was singled out as racist in the original conference, and antisemitic material, such as flyers praising Hitler and copies of the anti-Jewish conspiracy theory The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, were distributed at the parallel NGO forum.
Eleven countries - Israel, the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, the UK, Hungary, Austria, Netherlands, the Czech Republic and France - are boycotting the conference due to its antisemitic history.
Bennett is set to land in Washington on Tuesday evening and will meet with US President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on his trip.
The prime minister does not plan to meet any members of Congress while in Washington, because of coronavirus restrictions, but he is expected to call some key members.
Bennett will not be staying at the Blair House, which is the White House’s guest house, because it is under renovation. His wife, Gilat Bennett, will not be joining him, in adherence with the prime minister’s admonition against unnecessary travel abroad during the current wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.