A highly charged meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden appeared to be on hold late Monday, as the American leader continued to convalesce from a bout with the COVID-19 coronavirus.
With Netanyahu having flown to Washington, DC, on Monday for meetings and a politically fraught address to Congress, a report suggesting that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump had thus far declined to schedule a meeting with Netanyahu cast another question mark over the high-level visit.
As he is recovering from COVID, Biden was unlikely to host Netanyahu for a tentatively scheduled meeting Tuesday due to the continuing illness, a source in the prime minister’s entourage told The Times of Israel Monday.
A person familiar with Biden’s schedule confirmed Sunday that the president will host Netanyahu at the White House. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly, said the exact timing of the meeting had not been established because Biden is recovering.
The White House has said Biden is quarantining in Delaware and will return to Washington once he tests negative, without offering a more detailed timeframe.
Biden’s physician Kevin O’Conner said Monday that the president’s symptoms “have almost resolved completely,” and that he was continuing to perform all of his duties from quarantine.
The White House said Biden received separate briefings on Monday from homeland security adviser Liz Sherwood-Randall and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan. Both briefings were conducted virtually.
The president tested positive for COVID while campaigning in Nevada last week. News of the illness came days before Biden announced he would drop his reelection bid amid concerns over his age and health, seemingly paving the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to pick up the Democratic nomination for the White House race.
Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet with Harris during the trip, and will address Congress on Wednesday. Harris is scheduled to attend a campaign event in Indianapolis that day and will not attend the speech in her dual role as president of the Senate. GOP Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Trump’s running mate, will also not attend the speech due to a campaign-related commitment.
Speaking from the tarmac before departing Israel on Monday morning, Netanyahu, who had already pushed off his trip by a day due to Biden’s illness, appeared keen to bury differences between his government and the US administration that have intensified as the war against Hamas in Gaza has dragged on.
Striking a bipartisan tone, Netanyahu said he intended to use his speech to Congress to reaffirm to the US that “regardless of who the American people choose as their next president, Israel remains its most indispensable and strongest ally in the Middle East.”
But efforts to secure a meeting with the current front-runner in the race to succeed Biden, former president Donald Trump, have been stymied until now, according to a Monday report by Politico.
Citing two unnamed people familiar with the details, the news site reported that while the former president has not rejected the idea outright, he has yet to agree to a meeting, which would likely take place in Florida.
One source was quoted saying that such a meeting would likely not occur until after Trump holds a rally in North Carolina on Thursday, pushing off a potential Netanyahu return home until after the weekend, due to the Jewish Shabbat starting at sundown Friday.
The Israeli premier has a checkered history with both Biden and Trump.
The Biden administration has stood staunchly beside Israel, and the Democrat became the first US president to make a wartime visit to the country, less than two weeks after October 7.
But the relationship between the two leaders has appeared to grow increasingly strained as the result of disagreements over Israel’s campaign against Hamas, and chiefly the continued difficulties of getting humanitarian aid to civilians, the unverified high death toll reported by Hamas health authorities, and what the US says is Israel’s lack of postwar plans for the Strip. Similar concerns will likely persist if Americans elect a new Democratic president.
Biden earlier this year froze the delivery of high-payload bombs over fears they would be used in Israel’s incursion into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, which at the time sheltered more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million.
The issue of weapons shipments turned into an extended spat, after Netanyahu issued a video statement slamming “inconceivable” “bottlenecks” that the US had created in the transfer of shipments of weapons, which the Biden administration responded to by saying it had no idea what the premier was talking about.
Trump at rallies has used typical bombast to signal support for Israel’s military campaign, but has also been harshly critical of the government’s management of the war effort and Netanyahu in particular for failing to stop the October 7 attack.
Since leaving office, the Republican has repeatedly spoken out against Netanyahu, including angrily accusing him of disloyalty for congratulating Biden over his 2020 election win.
Netanyahu’s address to Congress on Wednesday — his fourth one as prime minister — has the potential to cause disarray on both sides of the ocean, amid ongoing efforts to bring about a ceasefire and hostage release deal and rising concerns of a new full-out front opening up with the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon or the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
The prime minister is accompanied on his trip by freed hostages and family members of those still captive in Gaza, including some who have criticized the prime minister over the failures surrounding the October 7 terror onslaught but who believe their presence may pressure him into agreeing to a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.