US President Joe Biden told reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will not be invited to visit the White House “in the near term,” despite reports that he would receive an invitation soon. President Biden also said as he boarded Air Force One at the Raleigh-Durham airport that he is very concerned about the state of Israel’s democracy and that Israel “cannot continue down this road. And I’ve sort of made that clear,” referring to the current government push to legislate judicial reform. “I hope he walks away from it,” the president said of Netanyahu and the judicial reform legislation.
On Wednesday morning, Netanyahu released a statement in response to President Biden in which he first praised President Biden’s “longstanding commitment to Israel” and said that the “alliance between Israel and the United States is unbreakable and always overcomes the occasional disagreements between us.” Netanyahu added that “Israel is a sovereign country which makes its decisions by the will of its people and not based on pressures from abroad, including from the best of friends.” Coalition member and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also responded to Biden’s remarks, saying that while Israel “appreciates the democratic regime there, it is precisely for this region that they need to understand that Israel is an independent country and no longer a star on the US flag.”
US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides told Army Radio on Tuesday that Netanyahu would soon be invited to the White House, hours after Netanyahu on Monday night announced in a nationally televised address that he would pause the judicial reform legislation making its way through the country’s parliament out of a sense of “national responsibility” and the desire to prevent a “civil war.” Such an invitation has eluded the prime minister since his government was sworn in at the end of last year, an implied critique of his government policies.
Meanwhile, Israel’s President Isaac Herzog hosted teams of negotiators representing Israel’s government and some opposition parties at his residence in Jerusalem on Tuesday night for the start of talks on judicial reform. On Wednesday, Herzog began holding dialogue meetings with representatives of other opposition parties in Jerusalem.