News Agency
\nWashington
\nUS President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid any tensions to rest on Wednesday by finally holding their first phone call since the change of administration in Washington.
\nNetanyahu was one of the last foreign leaders to get a call from Biden, who took office on January 20, despite Israel\u2019s special relationship with the United States.
\nBoth sides stressed their close ties during the call, which Biden told reporters was a \u201cgood conversation\u201d.
\nThe White House said Biden registered \u201csupport\u201d for a series of agreements brokered by his predecessor Donald Trump on normalising relations between Israel and Arab and Muslim countries.
\nBiden \u201caffirmed his personal history of steadfast commitment to Israel\u2019s security and conveyed his intent to strengthen all aspects of the US-Israel partnership, including our strong defence cooperation,\u201d a White House statement said.
\nIn a statement, Netanyahu\u2019s media adviser called the talk \u201cvery warm and friendly\u201d and lasting about an hour.
\n\u201cThe two leaders noted their longstanding personal connection\u201d and agreed to strengthen the countries\u2019 alliance, the statement added.
\nThe Israeli premier and US president \u201cdiscussed the future advancement of the peace accords, the Iranian threat and regional challenges, and agreed to continue their dialogue\u201d.
\nBiden made a point
\nPlacing Netanyahu far down on the list was widely interpreted as Biden\u2019s way of signalling a reset in US-Mideast relations following the Trump era.
\nThe Republican often boasted of being what he called the most \u201cpro-Israel\u201d president in US history. He closely followed Netanyahu\u2019s priorities, including moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem \u2014 a move seen as provocative by many other countries.
\nBiden has also made a point of cooling the close personal relations established by Trump with Saudi Arabia\u2019s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Democrat has yet to call the Saudis and says when he does it will be to King Salman himself.
\nThe perception of a cold shoulder irked Netanyahu\u2019s Likud Party.
\nDanny Danon, head of Likud\u2019s global wing, recently tweeted a list of Biden\u2019s conversations with leaders and asked, \u201cMight it now be time to call the leader of Israel, the closest ally of the US?\u201d And Nikki Haley, Trump\u2019s former ambassador to the United Nations, accused the Biden administration of \u201csnubbing\u201d Israel. On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki insisted that Netanyahu wasn\u2019t being ignored \u2014 but indicated that he was not exactly on the front burner.
\n\u201cLet me confirm for you that his first call with a leader in the region will be Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t have an exact date for you but it is soon.\u201d
\nIran disagreement persists
\nDespite the back-to-normal nature of the phone call, Biden\u2019s Mideast agenda is already taking a sharp turn from the one that made Trump so popular with Netanyahu.
\nCrucially, Trump withdrew from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers to keep Tehran\u2019s nuclear industry under close monitoring in exchange for relaxing crippling sanctions on the country. This pleased Israel, which insists that Iran was cheating on the deal and working towards a nuclear weapon \u2014 something the Iranians denied.
\nBiden has come into office declaring that he wants to return to the deal in some form, calling Trump\u2019s \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign on Iran a failure.
\nIn Wednesday\u2019s phone call, \u201cBiden also commended Netanyahu on his leadership in the fight against the coronavirus,\u201d the Israeli premier\u2019s media adviser added. Israel has surged ahead in its vaccination drive against Covid-19.
\nThe country of about nine million people on Tuesday delivered a shot of the Pfizer\/BioNTech vaccine to its four millionth citizen. More than 2.6m of them have already received the second jab recommended for maximum protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
News Agency Washington US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid any tensions to rest on Wednesday by finally holding their first phone call since the change of administration in Washington. Netanyahu was one of the last foreign leaders to get a call from Biden, who took office on January 20, despite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175342,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-175330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n