Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi met Blinken on the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport and said it was “a great honor” to host him. Ashkenazi, like every other Israeli official Blinken met, effusively thanked the secretary of state for “America’s strong stance beside Israel and its right to defend itself and its citizens.”
The secretary of state emphasized that US President Joe Biden “made crystal clear throughout the violence that the US fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks such as Hamas firing rockets indiscriminately against civilians.”
The US really did stand up for Israel during Operation Guardian of the Walls, and Israeli officials were satisfied behind the scenes, as well. The US blocked repeated attempts by the UN Security Council to release one-sided statements that condemned Israel while ignoring Hamas. Statements from Blinken and Biden unequivocally defended Israel’s right to defend itself and condemned Hamas terrorists. After the truce, they promised to replenish Israel’s Iron Dome batteries.
One could quibble over words here or there; after all, in diplomacy, every word choice has meaning. Some commentators raised an eyebrow at the Biden administration’s repeated formulation that Palestinians and Israelis deserve “equal measures of security, peace and dignity.” Others – including this writer – saw Biden’s call for Israel to start moving toward a ceasefire as premature and a capitulation to Israel critics in Congress; though, in that case, Israeli officials at the time pointed out that Biden did not set a time limit for the operation to end, and in hindsight we know Washington spoke about a truce publicly only once Israeli security officials said privately that things were winding down.
That’s not to say that the Israeli position and the American position were exactly the same, but, as Biden has repeatedly emphasized is his preference, disagreements were mostly worked out behind closed doors, and the countries presented a mostly united front.
As such, officials in Jerusalem were united in their gratitude to the Biden administration when it comes to Operation Guardian of the Walls.
AN ENTIRELY different story was taking place 1,800 miles away, in Vienna.
The fifth round of indirect nuclear talks between the US and Iran began in the Austrian capital on the same day as Blinken’s visit to Israel. The goal of the negotiations is for the sides to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
On that, officials in Jerusalem are united in their opposition.
Sure, there are some Israeli think tankers and organizations of retired military officers who have been trotted out to say otherwise. But as far as the people actually making decisions are concerned, “this is unanimous between the defense minister, foreign minister all the senior officials in the defense establishment. There is no daylight between the prime minister’s stance and that of all the defense professionals in Israel that this agreement is bad,” Ambassador to the US and the UN Gilad Erdan said on KAN Radio on Wednesday.
There is something blatantly contradictory between working in Jerusalem on finding ways to help rebuild Gaza while ensuring the funding does not benefit Hamas and even undermines Hamas, as Blinken posited the aid would do, while his envoy Rob Malley was negotiating to remove sanctions from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad benefactor the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The same goes for declaring a commitment to Israel’s security while in talks to return to an agreement that would give Iran international legitimacy to develop a nuclear weapon in nine years.
And Israeli concerns about those inconsistencies came out before, during and after Blinken’s visit.
“Israel values our friend the US very much,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech the night before Blinken’s arrival, “but ensuring that the ayatollahs will not stop the thousands of years of existence of the Jewish people will require us to make courageous and independent decisions.... With or without an agreement, we will do everything to prevent Iran from arming itself with a nuclear weapon – because that is our existence.”
Standing next to Blinken for a statement to the press the next day, Netanyahu said he hopes the US will not return to the JCPOA, which “paves the way for Iran to have an arsenal of nuclear weapons with international legitimacy.”
Erdan said shortly before Blinken took off for Cairo that the US is giving in to “nuclear extortion” from Iran: “If Iran wants the US to return to the deal so badly, you have to ask, why do they want it? And I’ll answer why: Because in a few years, when the agreement ends, Iran will no longer have to violate it, because it will have the legitimacy to have thousands of advanced centrifuges that will allow it to break out to a bomb in a very short time. Israel cannot accept this situation.”
Blinken tried to make the case for the JCPOA to the Israeli public in a press conference and an interview with Channel 12 News, saying it is the “most heavily verified agreement in the history of arms control,” and without it Iran can get closer to a nuclear bomb immediately. The JCPOA will “put the nuclear problem back into the box that we constructed,” he said, and until it expires in 2030, the US can push to make the deal “longer and stronger.”
But Erdan lamented that Blinken didn’t have an answer as to what would happen if Iran refuses to negotiate stricter terms for the nuclear agreement.
Blinken said he realizes the nuclear talks are “of great consequence to Israel,” and emphasized that the US and Israel share the goal of not letting Iran get the bomb, even if they disagree on how to attain that goal.
The secretary of state also denied Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s statement that there is already an agreement in principle, saying “that would be news to us.... It remains an unanswered question whether Iran is actually prepared to do what it needs to do to come back into compliance. The jury is still out on that.”
Erdan, on his part, said he “totally believe[s] the US government [when it says] that it does not want Iran to have the bomb and that would be very bad.”
However, he added, “for Israel it’s not just very bad, it’s an existential interest, because we are the ones directly threatened by Iran, and they are the ones building a network of terror organizations around us.”
Still, both Erdan and Blinken presented the tensions as disagreements between friends.
THE OTHER potential point of tension between the Biden administration and the Israeli government as it currently stands – though no one can say for how much longer – is on the Palestinian issue.
While Blinken was in Ramallah, he announced that he would reopen a US consulate serving Palestinians in Jerusalem.
Erdan said the next morning that Netanyahu had told Blinken hours before the announcement that Israel opposes having a consulate in Jerusalem, because it is sovereign Israeli territory. Notably, the US is one of the few countries that actually recognizes Jerusalem as such, and Biden has said he would not reverse that policy.
When it comes to Israel-Palestinian relations and the possibility of an eventual peace plan, the Biden administration has been consistent in having realistically low expectations, overreaching to try to get a Nobel Peace Prize.
Yes, Blinken said the administration believes that the two-state solution is “not just the best way, but probably the only way” forward, but he admitted that “a lot of work needs to be redone to try to rebuild some confidence... some trust... some conditions and an environment in which it might be possible to reengage.”
In other words, he didn’t seem to be putting pressure on Israel to make concessions anytime soon, though he did list settlement activity in the same short list of obstructive actions as the Palestinian Authority’s policy of paying terrorists.
Overall, Blinken sought to strengthen the PA to the end of a two-state solution and also to weaken Hamas, which is the exact policy Defense Minister Benny Gantz described as “essential” two days earlier.
OFFICIALS IN Washington have been saying to Israelis “We’re not the Trump administration, we’re not the Obama administration – we’re the Biden administration.”
While they’re not almost perfectly aligned with Netanyahu the way former US president Donald Trump was, they’re also not looking to put daylight between themselves and Jerusalem and are trying to avoid public confrontation, unlike in the era of former US president Barack Obama.
The tensions are at a manageable low simmer; they’re not boiling over. Whether that situation holds depends on where the negotiations in Vienna go, and whether the US and Iran will return to a deal that Israel views as a major threat.