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Blinken Meets Netanyahu at Turbulent Moment for Israel

The secretary of state and the Israeli leader had a ‘candid’ conversation amid deepening rifts over the Palestinians, Ukraine and a rightward shift by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel wearing dark suits and walking down stairs. Other officials in suits are behind them.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel arriving for a joint news conference in Jerusalem on Monday.Credit...Pool photo by Ronaldo Schemidt

JERUSALEM — As Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken stood beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Monday in Jerusalem, the two men spoke of an enduring bond between their countries — even as deepening differences on a series of fundamental issues are placing that unity under enormous stress.

In the context of a relationship troubled by Israel’s political lurch rightward and escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence, along with disagreements on matters including Iran’s nuclear program and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the familiar affirmations of a vital alliance almost seemed defensive, as if the two men recognized how difficult sustaining that bond has become.

Mr. Blinken pleaded with Israelis and Palestinians to prevent a cycle of retribution after months of elevated violence exploded in recent days with a bloody Israeli military raid in the West Bank and terrorist attacks within Jerusalem, leaving more than 20 people dead.

Israel has also been strained with mass protests, with as many as 100,000 people attending one in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Israelis who oppose a re-elected Mr. Netanyahu and his plans to assert more political control over the judiciary have taken to the streets, warning of a right-wing threat to Israel’s democratic foundations — a concern shared by the Biden administration. The new Israeli coalition, which formed last month, is widely seen as the most right-wing and religious in Israel’s history.

After expressing America’s “steadfast support” for Israel, Mr. Blinken nodded to the disagreements in what he called a “candid” one-on-one conversation with Mr. Netanyahu.

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A person on a stretcher after a shooting attack outside Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday. Mr. Blinken arrived in Israel after days of deadly violence.Credit...Ammar Awad/Reuters

He reiterated America’s support for a two-state solution with the Palestinians — a goal more distant than ever under Mr. Netanyahu’s coalition government, which was established with the support of ultranationalist figures who take hard-line positions toward Palestinian rights and encourage increased Israeli settlement of the West Bank.

Mr. Blinken also spoke of the importance of “core democratic principles and institutions,” an apparent reference to the proposed judicial changes, and reminded Mr. Netanyahu of the value of governing by consensus.

And with Israel hedging its support for Ukraine for fear of angering President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia,Mr. Blinken spoke of “the importance of providing support for all of Ukraine’s needs.”

Mr. Netanyahu, now in his third term as prime minister, joked that he is a survivor who has partnered with “quite a few” American presidents. (Four, to be exact.) But within the Biden administration, where many know Mr. Netanyahu well from a tenure that overlapped with Barack Obama’s presidency, the memories are not fond.

The Israeli leader’s electoral comeback last year after a brief political exile, while facing criminal charges, stunned American officials, who remember his bitter clashes with Mr. Obama over Iran, the Palestinians and other matters. They also remember how the Israeli leader, long seen as aligned with Republicans, worked hand in glove with President Donald J. Trump.

But it is also clear that both governments need one another. Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Blinken each spoke about the potential for cooperation on what might be the prime minister’s chief foreign policy goal: further normalizing Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors, potentially including Saudi Arabia.

It will not be easy. U.S. officials have warned Mr. Netanyahu that the more his coalition’s domestic agenda clashes with Washington’s views, the harder such collaboration becomes.

“This moment is probably the most severe political challenge to the U.S.-Israel relationship since Menachem Begin became prime minister in 1977,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the liberal Israel advocacy group J Street.

The Biden administration’s frustrations with Mr. Netanyahu and his coalition, which includes some figures considered radical enough that U.S. officials will not interact with them directly, were obscured somewhat by Mr. Blinken’s strong expressions of sorrow and solidarity after a pair of terrorist attacks in East Jerusalem carried out by Palestinians in recent days.

After landing at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Mr. Blinken delivered an unusual statement on the tarmac that expressed condolences and called “especially shocking” a Friday attack outside a synagogue in which a Palestinian gunman killed seven people.

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Family and friends of Eli and Natali Mizrahi, who were killed in a shooting attack in a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, at their funeral on Saturday.Credit...Amir Levy/Getty Images

The attacks followed an Israeli raid on Thursday on a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank city of Jenin, which led to the deaths of 10 Palestinians, including a 61-year-old woman. Palestinian officials called the killings a massacre, and the Palestinian Authority suspended its security cooperation with Israel’s military. Israeli officials said the raid was ordered to arrest militants from the Islamic Jihad group planning “major attacks” against Israelis.

The violence continued on Sunday, when a Palestinian man was fatally shot outside an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and Israeli settlers carried out nearly 150 attacks against Palestinians and their properties across the region.

U.S. officials and analysts worry that Palestinian frustration with a moribund peace process, along with the rise of hard-line Israeli leaders, has created dry tinder that could burst into a major Palestinian uprising.

Mr. Blinken appealed for calm amid worries about escalatory responses, saying that he had come “at a pivotal” moment.

“Calls for vengeance against more innocent victims are not the answer,” he said. “And acts of retaliatory violence against civilians are never justified.”

After meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Blinken reiterated American support for “upholding the historic status quo at Jerusalem’s holy places,” including the Temple Mount, a holy site sacred to Jews and Muslims. Earlier this month, the hard-line Israeli minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, made a provocative visit to the site that drew a furious reaction from the Palestinian leadership and alarmed U.S. officials.

Mr. Blinken planned to travel on Tuesday to Ramallah, the administrative hub of the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank, and meet with the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas. He is likely to appeal to Mr. Abbas to help contain the escalating violence, which included a shooting in Jerusalem by a 13-year-old Palestinian boy last weekend.

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Palestinians inspecting damage after an Israeli raid to arrest gunmen in Jenin in the West Bank last week that led to the deaths of 10 Palestinians. Credit...Raneen Sawafta/Reuters

But he will also press Mr. Abbas to avoid pursuing cases against Israel in forums like the International Criminal Court, an approach the Biden administration calls counterproductive. The Palestinian leader may be frustrated by the message, which offers his people little that they have not heard before.

Adding to the sense of unease, Mr. Blinken arrived in Israel a day after an Iranian military facility was targeted by a drone attack that senior intelligence officials said was the work of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency. The United States and Israel are searching for a joint strategy to contain Iran’s nuclear program — a task made somewhat easier by the apparent failure of Mr. Biden’s efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which Mr. Netanyahu vociferously opposed. But the prime minister most likely has a greater appetite for confrontation with Tehran than does Mr. Biden, consumed by the war in Ukraine and by competition with China.

Despite it all, in public, Mr. Blinken and Mr. Netanyahu struck a friendly tone. The Israeli leader referred to the secretary of state first by his title, and then as “Tony,” a reflection of a relationship with Mr. Blinken, a longtime aide to Mr. Biden, that dates back many years. Wearing a smile, he called Mr. Biden “a true friend of Israel” and spoke of “the unbreakable bond between Israel and the United States.” Mr. Blinken responded that “America’s commitment has never wavered. It never will.”

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A neighborhood in East Jerusalem on Sunday. Biden administration officials worry that hard-line positions toward the Palestinians espoused by members of Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet will make resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict even more difficult.Credit...Afif H. Amireh for The New York Times

Administration officials have thus far tempered their public criticism of Israel’s government, preferring to have difficult conversations in private, according to people familiar with the exchanges, particularly on matters of internal Israeli politics.

“They like to be private and behind the scenes,” Mr. Ben-Ami said. “Our line is that the administration has to be tougher and more public about it.”

But the plan to exert more political control over the judiciary — especially at a moment when Mr. Netanyahu has three criminal cases pending against him, on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust — may be too much for the Biden administration, as well as Congress, to overlook.

“It sucks all the oxygen out of the room,” said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. A sense that Israel’s judiciary is no longer independent, he said, would mean that “you lose a huge chunk of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

The judicial reform plan is still only a proposal, and American officials are hopeful that it might be moderated or abandoned. In an interview with The Times of Israel published on Jan. 22, Thomas Nides, the U.S. ambassador to Jerusalem, said, “it would be enormously helpful if we don’t have to be dealing every day with things that we fundamentally oppose, because that just distracts us from the bigger issues that we’re trying to achieve.”

But it is unclear how much control Mr. Netanyahu has over his coalition, which functions with a razor-margin majority in Parliament, or whether he will have to accommodate its most far-right members to remain in power.

During a later appearance with Mr. Blinken, Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, appeared to acknowledge Washington’s frustration with Israel’s limited support for Ukraine. Mr. Cohen said he planned to visit Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in the near future.

Mr. Netanyahu has signaled that he will continue the policy of his predecessor, Yair Lapid, by providing Ukraine with nonmilitary aid only.

Both countries are in strong agreement that they should improve Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbors and build on normalization agreements, known as the Abraham Accords, that were struck during the Trump administration. Mr. Blinken noted on Monday that the Biden administration “has worked relentlessly to deepen and broaden the Abraham Accords.”

For Mr. Netanyahu, the grand prize would be normalized relations with Saudi Arabia. But analysts say that officially normalizing Israel’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, even though the two countries have become unofficial security partners against Iran, will be exceedingly difficult if Israel is seen as seizing greater control over the West Bank and trampling Palestinian rights.

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Carrying the body of a Palestinian who officials say was killed in an Israeli raid in the West Bank village of Jaba earlier this month.Credit...Majdi Mohammed/Associated Press

Michael Crowley is a diplomatic correspondent in the Washington bureau. He joined The Times in 2019 as a White House correspondent in the Trump administration and has filed from dozens of countries. More about Michael Crowley

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Netanyahu Meets Blinken as Strife Grows in Israel. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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