Biden in Israel: A meeting of the (moderate) minds?

Joe Biden is set to make his maiden trip as president to the Middle East this week, landing in Israel Wednesday before flying to a regional summit in Saudi Arabia over the weekend.

Much of the attention will be on the president’s meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman – once referred to by Mr. Biden as a “pariah.” But in Jerusalem he will be hosted by a friendly Israeli leader much closer to the president’s own political values – a moderate with “an aversion to extremes.”

Mere weeks ago, this wasn’t a given. Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid assumed the top spot as caretaker late last month after the dissolution of the broad, 1-year-old government he formed and led alongside the more right-wing Naftali Bennett.

With snap elections scheduled for Nov. 1 – Israel’s fifth ballot in less than four years – President Biden’s long-planned visit comes at a crucial moment for Mr. Lapid as he takes his first tentative steps in office while attempting to solidify his electoral prospects.

One subtext for the Biden visit: avoiding discord over fraught issues, such as Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy and Iran’s nuclear program, that could weaken Mr. Lapid’s standing.

The symmetry and commonalities between Mr. Biden and Mr. Lapid were plainly evident in their campaigns for office. In March 2021, as head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, Mr. Lapid was fighting to finally unseat the long-serving and right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu. His goals, as he said in an interview at the time, were to restore “sanity” to Israeli politics, to fight against the “politics of fear and hate,” and to ensure the country’s future as a liberal democracy.

The campaign Mr. Lapid ran back then, advised by an American strategist allied to the Democratic Party, drew comparisons to Mr. Biden’s successful general election victory a few months prior – right down to the conscious effort to hover above the toxic fray and to restore a modicum of decorum to the proceedings.

“If you’re trying to represent a culture that stands in opposition to all the hate and bigotry and type of campaign talk of recent years, then you need to start with yourself. You shouldn’t be part of it,” Mr. Lapid said in the interview. “No one needs me to yell and curse, and I’m not that successful at it.”

“That which unites us”

It worked for him. Mr. Lapid was able to cobble together a broad coalition government that was the most ideologically diverse in Israel’s history: eight parties spanning the spectrum from pro-settler right-wingers to pro-peace leftists and centrists. And for the first time in Israeli history, it included an Arab-Israeli faction.

In his inaugural speech to the nation as prime minister on July 2, Mr. Lapid spoke of the “common good” and “that which unites us.”

“There will always be disagreements,” Mr. Lapid added in the speech. “The question is how we manage them, and how we make sure they don’t manage us. The deep Israeli truth is that on most of the truly important topics, we believe in the same things.”

Israeli officials and analysts have highlighted the fact that the two leaders also believe in many of the same things. According to one senior Israeli official, who requested anonymity, they’re both “centrists, pragmatists, and moderates who have an aversion to extremes,” and truly perceive themselves as bulwarks against the rise of populist nationalism in their countries.

“Both leaders express concern regarding the illiberal winds blowing in their respective democracies, so there’s a potential bond there,” says Dan Shapiro, a distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council and former U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration. “They’re both aware of their responsibilities to conduct themselves according to democratic norms, institutions, and values.”

Ariel Schalit/AP

Yair Lapid, then Israel's foreign minister, smiles ahead of the vote on a bill to dissolve the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem, June 30, 2022. Mr. Lapid is now serving as caretaker prime minister until elections this fall, Israel's fifth in under four years.

The emphasis on shared values also extends to Mr. Lapid’s long-stated support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the government’s effort since taking office to repair relations with the Democratic Party in the U.S. and restore Israel’s bipartisan support in Washington.

“I’ve had a disagreement with Netanyahu for some time, about the fact that he completely associated Israel with the Republican Party, and not even with the entire Republican Party but with the [Donald] Trump wing of the Republican Party,” Mr. Lapid said in the interview last year. “For years I told Netanyahu – this will end badly.”

The Netanyahu issue

The mending of ties over the past year, according to analysts, has been successful. Major policy disagreements, particularly on the Iran nuclear threat, were managed behind closed doors, with the Biden administration careful not to press the Bennett-Lapid government on issues, like the Palestinian conflict, with the potential to destabilize its fragile hold on power.

The unstated American goal? To avoid a return to power by Mr. Netanyahu.

“The U.S. administration was very interested in [the survival of] this government,” says Gili Cohen, diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s Kan Public Broadcaster. “The diversity of the Israeli government was a major factor in this – not just ideologically, but also with respect to the number of women serving as ministers, that an Arab-Israeli was a minister, that an Arab-Israeli party was part of the coalition.”

To be sure, Mr. Biden will, per official protocol, meet as well with Mr. Netanyahu, now the opposition leader, albeit for a scheduled 15 minutes. According to Ambassador Shapiro, whatever the personal preference of the American president in terms of the identity of the Israeli premier, Mr. Biden is savvy enough to avoid getting entangled in domestic Israeli politics.

“Any U.S. effort to influence an Israeli election is ill-advised and likely to be unsuccessful. [Biden] will play it straight,” Mr. Shapiro says. “This will produce the best policy result and it’s the best politics too.”

None of this means that the expected warm embrace of the U.S. president will not be a boon for Mr. Lapid’s reelection chances.

“Without a doubt … it will help him,” says Ms. Cohen. Mr. Netanyahu, during successive election campaigns, touted his self-image as a global statesman, erecting giant billboards across the country with his picture alongside world leaders like Mr. Trump, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and India’s Narendra Modi. The tagline: “Netanyahu: A League Apart.”

“Lapid doesn’t have those images yet, so he wants to project himself to the public as a real candidate for prime minister that’s playing in the big leagues,” says Ms. Cohen. “Every moment and interaction and picture with Biden will be seized on by Lapid.”

During the next four months ahead of election day, Mr. Lapid will try to show the voting public that he is up to the job of running the complicated and fractious country.

“The public will reward a prime minister doing a good job, who they feel they can trust,” says the senior Israeli official.

Outreach to Palestinian leader

What Mr. Lapid does in the office, and how he chooses to govern, will be made clearer in the coming days alongside Mr. Biden on a host of policy issues, although no major shifts are expected from his partner Mr. Bennett’s tenure. “Different nuances perhaps, but not huge differences,” adds the Israeli official.

Mr. Lapid, this past weekend, already spoke by phone with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a step Mr. Bennett refused to take. and some small-bore measures are being countenanced to help support the Palestinian economy and health system.

Israel also expects further moves toward normalization with its Arab neighbors to come out of the Biden visit, including possible aviation links with Saudi Arabia and progress toward a regional air defense system. And according to Israeli officials, Israel’s opposition to the Iran nuclear agreement – which the Biden administration has aimed to restore – will continue, albeit with the aim of further coordinating Israeli and U.S. positions in the event that talks with Iran completely collapse.

Fundamentally, however, the two leaders’ wholehearted and almost unconditional support for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship is expected to be the main guiding theme for the coming days. Mr. Biden has long described himself as a Zionist and repeatedly highlights the fact that he has met with every Israeli premier dating back to the early 1970s.

“Biden’s emotional attachment to Israel has been central to his politics during his decadeslong career,” says Ambassador Shapiro. “So a visit to Israel early in his term is very natural.”