After Months of Refusal, Biden Agrees to Meet Netanyahu

(Patria) - US President Joe Biden has agreed to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the United States, but has refused, amid months of tensions, to specify whether it will be at the White House, AFP reported.

The offer of a meeting, made by Israeli President Isaac Herzog ahead of a White House visit on Tuesday, marks a slight easing of tensions between Biden and the leader he recently described as leading "one of the most extremist" coalitions in half a century.

This will be the first such meeting since Netanyahu returned to office late last year, which has angered Washington with controversial judicial reforms and aggressive settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territory.

The Prime Minister's office announced that Biden "invited" him during a "long and warm" phone call and that it would be "soon in the US." However, the US statement, released long after the Israeli statement, did not mention a meeting or an invitation.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters separately that they "agreed to meet, likely before the end of the year," perhaps "in the fall." However, he declined to say whether this meant an invitation to the White House or a meeting elsewhere, saying they were still working out "all the details, where and when."

The relationship between the United States and one of its historically closest allies has been under great pressure since Netanyahu's political return at the head of a right-wing government in December.

Unlike Herzog's visit to the Oval Office in Washington, Kirby said that Biden and Netanyahu had been trying to arrange a call for "several weeks." They have been in conflict, particularly over Netanyahu's highly controversial attempt to reform the judiciary, which has triggered months of mass street protests over what opponents see as an attack on Israeli democracy.

In Monday's phone call, Netanyahu told Biden that the judicial law would be passed next week and that he intended to "reach broad public support for the rest of the reform during the summer recess," his office said.

According to the US statement, Biden "expressed concern about the continued growth of Jewish settlements" and "stressed the need to take steps to maintain the viability" of a future Palestinian state alongside Israel. Regarding judicial reforms, "Biden reiterated... the need for the broadest possible consensus," emphasizing that "shared democratic values have always been and must remain a hallmark of US-Israeli relations," it stated.