Before the recent Hamas attack on Israel, the country’s relations with US looked frayed. The right-wing coalition government of Binyamin Netanyahu, which includes members of several far-right parties, had unleashed domestic upheaval by trying to weaken the country’s judiciary. The US president, Joe Biden, warned Netanyahu several times not to rush ahead with his plans, calling for Israel’s government to seek consensus.
Biden said repeatedly that Netanyahu would not be invited to the White House “in the near term”. A rather tepid meeting subsequently took place on the margins of the United Nations annual meeting, but it was marked by the lack of warmth between the two leaders.
Biden reportedly warned Netanyahu against the judicial overhaul and also called for Israel to improve conditions in the West Bank, where there had been violence between Palestinians and settlers. The aloofness between the two leaders could have been construed as reflecting a deepening rift in the strategic alliance between Israel and the US.
