Presidential visits to Israel are rare occasions. In non-pandemic times, Israeli prime ministers fly to the United States once or twice a year, but presidents rarely come to Israel more than once a term. Joe Biden’s arrival in Israel next week will be only the third scheduled visit by a serving president in more than 14 years (Barack Obama visited twice in his eight years in office but the second time was chiefly to attend Shimon Peres’ funeral).
Their rarity actually makes these visits in some ways less important than they may seem. Most of the substantial policy work of the Israel-American relationship is carried out in the Israeli prime minister’s visits to Washington, and of course at the lower ministerial and official levels. Israeli diplomats have been trying to somewhat lower expectations of the visit, saying there won’t necessarily be major policy announcements.
Israel's new prime minister Yair Lapid
What is important about the visits to Israel is the pomp and circumstance — the sight of the leader of the free world affirming the United States’ special and strategic relationship with its Middle Eastern ally. In this visit’s case, there are two special circumstances expected.
One is that Mr Biden will become the first American president to visit a Israeli military base, Palmachim Air Force Base where he will review Israeli missile-defence systems. (In the visits by Barack Obama and Donald Trump, an Iron Dome battery was brought to BenGurion Airport for them.)
The other is the fact that this time Israel is the first stop on the president’s itinerary and he will then fly directly to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Mr Trump went to Saudi and then flew to Israel. Mr Obama pointedly snubbed Israel for his second term, leaving it out from his first Middle Eastern trip to Egypt and Saudi.
The Biden administration is fully abreast of Israeli domestic politics and is eager to help new prime minister Yair Lapid, who will have the perhaps unique windfall of hosting a president less than two weeks after taking office.
The Americans are anxious that nothing should ruin the event, which is why they were also relieved to wrap up the investigation into the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, before his arrival.
Gun probe draws a blank
The US State Department’s statement on Monday that the joint ballistic examination of the bullet supplied to it by the Palestinian Authority and which was supposed to have been the one that hit Ms Abu Akleh in the head, causing her death, could not conclude if it had indeed been fired from an Israeli rifle, satisfied the Israeli side.
Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh
The Americans concluded that it was “likely” she had been hit by Israeli fire (a detail which was omitted from the Israeli statement) but that it was not intentional.
Israel’s own internal investigation had already determined which of the soldiers of the Duvdevan unit had fired in the direction of the Al Jazeera team and it was that soldier’s rifle which was being compared to the bullet. Off the record, Israeli officials are acknowledging that it is indeed highly likely that it was that rifle which fired the bullet.
But there’s no conclusive evidence and the Americans are happy to end things there.
The Palestinians, who insist it was an “assassination”, are trying to pursue the matter through the international courts. Israeli courts have other matters to attend to.
Bibi’s favourite cigar
Israel’s justice system can’t say for sure which bullet killed Shireen Abu Akleh, but it has informed Israelis this week what are its former prime minister’s favourite cigars — and even with which liqueur he likes to infuse cigars.
The testimony of Hadas Klein, estate manager of billionaires Arnon Milchan and James Packer, in Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial was meticulous in its detail.
Ms Klein told the Jerusalem District Court that the prime minister had insisted she purchase a specific thickness of Cohiba cigar for him. It had to be a 56 gauge, he said, when she came up only with a box of 54s. And Mr Milchan’s driver was sent on a Friday night to purchase a bottle of Cointreau for the cigar-dipping.
The trial is expected to continue for at least another year and we will have to wait for the verdict to discover whether these stories of Mr Netanyahu and his wife Sara’s demands of their benefactors will make the case that he committed fraud, as the prosecution claims.
But the more immediate question is if any of this will have an effect on Israeli voters in less than four months.
Non-intelligence agency
The news this week that over the past four and a half months since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, 30,000 new immigrants had arrived in Israel from the two countries passed with little notice.
Ukrainians Jews arriving in Tel Aviv
This figure has already surpassed the entire number of immigrants to Israel in 2021 from the entire world and numbers are expected for the time being to continue at this pace as long as the war continues without an end in sight. That is if the immigration operations continue to run smoothly.
What did make headlines was a report that the Russian government were threatening to shut down Jewish Agency operations in its territory after the agency had broken Russian laws on collecting information.
There was no official Israeli or Russian confirmation of the news which, if true, could make Jewish emigration more difficult. Neither was it clear whether the Russian decision, whatever it is, was made due to Israel’s rather lukewarm support of Ukraine or other reasons.
No one in the Israeli government or in the major Jewish organisations has been prepared to go on record about the matter. One veteran operative who has spent a long career in organising Jewish emigration from the former Soviet Union was incandescent.
“Over the years there have been many similar problems with the Russian authorities,” he said. “Russian law is obscure and always changing, long before this was and has always been applied unevenly. There are a million ways organisations like the Jewish Agency can run foul of these laws, especially when an official at any level could have their own agenda.”
In the past, these matters were nearly always solved discreetly, usually through involving senior levels in both governments, without reaching the media and without impacting on the Jewish Agency’s operations.
The anger of veterans is reserved for the organisation’s leadership, currently undergoing a transition from the temporary chairman, Yaakov Hagoel, who stepped in over a year ago when Isaac Herzog was elected president, and Doron Almog, elected two weeks as the new chairman, after a long period of political wrangling.
“There’s a vacuum in the leadership and no one at the top has any real experience of working in Russia,” complains the operative.
“This would be a problem at the best of times, but to have this situation during the biggest war in Europe of our lifetimes is a disaster. Instead of trying to solve this problem quietly with the Russians, it’s been leaked by our side.”
The Jewish Agency is not in charge of approving candidates for aliyah in Russia and Ukraine. That is the job of Nativ, the secretive Israeli agency which maintains contacts with Jews in that part of the world. But the agency takes care of logistical matters such as arranging and paying for flights.
In peacetime, there are plentiful flights and tickets are easily booked. In wartime, with Ukrainian airspace closed and Russian airlines sanctioned, things become a lot more difficult.
