Netanyahu was sworn in as the new Prime Minister of Israel at the end of December but hasn’t been invited by Biden to visit the White House.
According to Reuters this is curious, given that only two out of the previous 13 prime ministers, going all the way back to 1970, have had to wait this long before being invited.
Well maybe not that curious. Reuters suggests this lack of an invite by Biden singals his unhappiness with Netanyahu and his new government:
Eleven weeks into his third stint as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to be received at the White House, signaling apparent U.S. unhappiness over the policies of his right-wing government.
Most new Israeli leaders had visited the United States or met the president by this point in their premierships, according to a Reuters review of official visits going back to the late 1970s. Only two out of 13 previous prime ministers heading a new government waited longer.
The White House declined to confirm Netanyahu has yet to be invited. A State Department spokesperson referred Reuters to the Israeli government for information about the prime minister’s travel plans.
Israel’s embassy in Washington declined to comment.
“The message they clearly want to send is: If you pursue objectionable policies, there’s no entitlement to the Oval Office sit-down,” said David Makovsky, a former senior adviser to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
There always seems to be animosity with Netanyahu when we have an Democrat administrations.
Obama made Netanyahu wait five months before he invited him to the White House in 2009. In March of 2010 Obama snubbed Netanyahu, refusing to eat dinner with him at the White House, which was unheard of until then. And let’s not forget how Obama did his best to try and get Netanyahu defeated in Israeli elections years later.
Now Biden is apparently following in Obama’s footsteps. I say that, but I doubt he’d be as insane as Obama was in terms of harboring such animosity toward Netanyahu during a White House visit. But at the end of the day both administrations are essentially the same and I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Netanyahu never got an invite from Biden.