Eleven weeks into his third stint as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to be received at the White House, signaling apparent US disagreement over the policies of his right-wing government.
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Most new Israeli leaders had visited the United States or met the president by this point in their premierships, according to a Reuters review of official visits going back to the late 1970s. Only two out of 13 previous prime ministers heading a new government waited longer.
The White House declined to confirm Netanyahu has yet to be invited. A State Department spokesperson referred Reuters to the Israeli government for information about the prime minister's travel plans. Israel's embassy in Washington declined to comment.
"The message they clearly want to send is: If you pursue objectionable policies, there's no entitlement to the Oval Office sit-down," said David Makovsky, a former senior adviser to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Since the start of the year, demonstrators have filled Israel's streets to protest the government's plan to curb the power of the Supreme Court, which critics say removes a check on the governing coalition.
Amid escalating violence in Judea and Samaria, the right-wing government's action authorizing settlements and inflammatory comments from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have drawn criticism from US officials, including from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin during a visit to Israel last week.
Nevertheless, US-Israeli ties remain close. The United States has long been Israel's main benefactor, sending more than $3 billion each year in military assistance.
President Joe Biden has known Netanyahu for decades, the two have spoken by phone, and senior officials in both countries have made visits since Netanyahu's government was formed in December, despite Israel's spiraling political crisis.
The Biden administration prefers quiet conversations over public criticism, a senior State Department official said, especially when it comes to the crisis over a proposed Israeli judicial reform.
"Anything that we would say on the specific proposals has the potential to be deeply counterproductive," the official said, adding the goal was to encourage Israel's leaders to build consensus over the reforms, rather than to be prescriptive on what the outcome should be.
Biden, a Democrat who describes himself as a Zionist, says US support for Israel is "ironclad."
"Biden's own personal instincts are such that it's very difficult for him to want to adopt an extremely tough posture toward Israel," Dennis Ross, a veteran US Middle East peace negotiator now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "He would prefer to have the Middle East in a box so he can focus only on Russia, Ukraine, and China. Unfortunately, the Middle East has a way of imposing itself, unless we initiate enough to try to manage the environment."
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