US President Joe Biden on Wednesday began a tour of the Middle East in Israel, where leaders will urge tough action against their common enemy Iran before a delicate halt in oil-rich Saudi Arabia.
Biden’s visit to Jeddah on Friday will be the focus of a visit after Saudi Arabia was labeled an “untouchable” in the 2018 murder of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Air Force One will make the first direct flight from Israel to Saudi Arabia amid efforts to build ties between the Jewish state and the Orthodox Gulf Kingdom that does not recognize Israel’s existence.
Earlier, Biden, 79, would meet with Israeli leaders seeking to broaden cooperation against Iran, and Palestinian leaders angered by what they described as Washington’s failure to curb Israeli aggression.
The persistent frustration of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy is nothing new for Biden, who first visited the region in 1973 after being elected to the Senate.
Israel and Iran were allies then, but are now enemies engaged in a “shadow war” of attacks and sabotage.
Israel’s acting prime minister, Yair Lapid, who greeted Biden at the airport, has said the talks will “focus first and foremost on the issue of Iran”.
Iran’s President Ibrahim Raisi warned that if Biden’s goal on the trip was to bolster Israel’s security, he was bound to fail.
“If the visit of US officials to the countries of the region is to strengthen the position of the Zionist regime … their efforts will in no way create security for the Zionists,” Raisi said, referring to Israel.
Jerusalem to Bethlehem
Moments after Biden landed, Israel’s military was supposed to show him its new Iron Beam System, an anti-drone laser it claims is vital to countering Iran’s fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles.
Israel insists it will do whatever is necessary to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and Tehran staunchly opposes the resumption of a 2015 sanctions-relieving deal.
Israeli police closed major roads as they touched down on Air Force One in central Jerusalem on Wednesday.
Israel has waved 1,000 flags across Jerusalem to welcome the US leader, who has not reversed former President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to recognize the city as the capital of the Jewish state.
The Palestinians claimed Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem as their capital and, before the visit, accused Biden of failing to fulfill his pledge to restore America as an honest broker in the conflict.
“We only hear empty words and get no results,” said Jibril Rajub, leader of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah movement.
Biden will meet Abbas in the West Bank-occupied city of Bethlehem on Friday, but there is no hope of bold announcements towards a new peace process, which means the visit could deepen Palestinian despair.
Israel is again caught in a political deadlock ahead of a parliamentary election on November 1, the fifth in less than four years.
Biden is scheduled to have a short meeting on Thursday with former Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will seek to reclaim power in the upcoming elections.
normalization step?
US-Palestinian relations have been strained by the May killing of Al Jazeera reporter Shirin Abu Akleh while she was covering an Israeli army raid in the West Bank.
The United Nations has concluded that a Palestinian-American journalist was killed by Israeli fire. Washington agreed that it was possible, but added that there was no evidence that the murder was intentional.
Abu Akleh’s family has expressed outrage at the Biden administration’s “disgusting response” to his death, and the White House has not commented on his request to meet with the president in Jerusalem.
Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Wednesday that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has “invited the family to sit in the United States and be able to connect with them directly”.
Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia is seen as part of efforts to stabilize war-torn oil markets in Ukraine, by reconnecting with a longtime US strategic ally and major energy supplier.
Israel hopes that the visit will also signal the beginning of the process of building diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.
Israel expanded its regional reach with US support in 2020, when it formalized ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco – successes that followed peace agreements with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
While there is no hope of Saudi Arabia recognizing the Jewish state in the near future, a senior Israeli official said Tuesday that Biden’s visit is an important step toward that goal.
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