Jerusalem officials on Sunday expressed hope that US President-elect Joe Biden will be able to avoid radical forces in the Democratic Party in favor of naming moderate individuals to his administration, as Israel now braces for potential shifts in US foreign policy with respect to the Middle East in general and particularly Israel, as well as the Iranian threat.
The four top positions in the administration are those of the national security adviser, secretary of state, us ambassador to the United Nations, and the future ambassador to Israel.
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Israeli officials expressed their confidence that a Biden administration will be committed to Israel's security but noted that he may find he is pulled in two different directions from within his party: the first led by moderate officials, whose views are closer to those the new president himself holds; and the second led by more radical individuals, who held senior positions in the Obama administration.
Israeli officials have already expressed concern about the potential nomination of former National Security Adviser Susan Rice as secretary of state.
Rice, who also served as US envoy to the UN under Obama, is known to hold a rigid approach to Israel on both the Palestinian and Iranian issues. As an official with the Obama administration, she had notoriously poor working relations with her Israeli counterparts, including Mossad Director Yossi Cohen.
On one occasion, she even stated that "even if Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement, if its parameters are unfair to the Palestinians, the United States will torpedo it."
Israeli officials said they hoped to see former US Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro, and Antony Blinken – Biden's adviser on the Middle East during the presidential campaign – assume key positions in the new administration, as they could "have a positive impact" on Israel-US ties.
"As president, Biden will maintain the special relationship that exists between Israel and the United States. He will not act like Obama, nor will he try to turn them into 'normal relations,'" former Israeli Ambassador to Washington Dr. Michael Oren told Israel Hayom.
"However, the indulgence we had during the Trump era is over. Trump set a unique standard, which included only affection and no criticism of Israel. This will no longer be the case, but it will also not be like during the Obama era," he said.
Meanwhile, a top aide to Biden was cited by Channel 12 News as saying that the new administration will likely rejoin the Iranian nuclear deal with world powers soon after taking office on January 20.
Trump exited the pact soon after taking office and his administration has since imposed several rounds of sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear program.
Amos Hochstein told that outlet that Biden will make re-entering the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action "a top priority," saying, "I believe that in the first months [of his presidency], we'll either see him rejoin the deal fully or what I would call 'JCPOA-minus,' meaning lifting sanctions in exchange for suspending some of the Iranian nuclear programs [developed] in the past three years."
Hochstein, who also worked on the Iran nuclear issue under former President Barack Obama, said that Biden may seek to make some changes to the deal but did not elaborate on specifics.
As for the potential resumption of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Hochstein said Biden "sees the two-state solution as preferable to one state. And his fear is that if there is no two-state solution, in the end, it will lead to a binational state."
He added the Biden administration will "bring back the Palestinian issue to the heart of the discourse."
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