On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden arrived in Israel, starting his first trip to the Middle East since taking office.
Interim Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid welcomed Biden at the Ben Gurion Airport, 12 miles southeast of Tel Aviv and 30 miles northwest of Jerusalem. Lapid greeted Biden and then talked about a new security system for the country to deter Iran from strengthing its nuclear weapons program.
Lapid said Israel and the U.S. must “renew a strong coalition” against Iran.
“We will discuss the need to renew a strong global coalition that will stop the Iranian nuclear program,” Lapid said soon after Air Force One landed.
Since Biden assumed office at the beginning of 2021, reviving the Iran nuclear deal — which former President Barack Obama mediated in 2015 and his successor Donald Trump withdrew from three years later — has allegedly been a priority.
In exchange for the removal of international sanctions, the agreement severely curtailed Iran’s nuclear program and subjected Tehran to stringent international sanctions.
Biden’s efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement have stalled, thwarting diplomatic efforts to persuade Tehran to export most of the nuclear material it is now enriching to levels close to those required for a nuclear weapon.
Biden will spend two days in Jerusalem before visiting Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, on Friday in the occupied West Bank.
He will go directly from Israel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, later Friday – a first for a U.S. president — to meet with Saudi authorities.
Biden will participate in a Gulf ally gathering in Saudi Arabia.
In a Washington Post article on Saturday, the president wrote, “[W]hen I meet with Saudi leaders on Friday, my aim will be to strengthen a strategic partnership going forward that’s based on mutual interests and responsibilities, while also holding true to fundamental American values.”
“On Friday, I will also be the first president to fly from Israel to Jiddah, Saudi Arabia. That travel will also be a small symbol of the budding relations and steps toward normalization between Israel and the Arab world, which my administration is working to deepen and expand,” he added.
As soon as he took office, Biden said he intended to shift the American “emphasis” away from the Middle East and toward China, as he felt Washington had squandered 20 years by not focusing on a genuine adversary.
