BIDEN WILL FIND A CHANGED MIDDLE EAST IN VISIT
Shifting alliances, oil crisis, Iranian threat all focuses of trip
When President Joe Biden arrives in the Middle East this week, on his first visit as American head of state, he will find a region where alliances, priorities and relations with the United States have shifted significantly since his last official trip, six years ago.
His visit opens in Israel and the occupied West Bank, once at the center of U.S. policy in the Middle East, and is expected to focus on Israel’s fast-strengthening ties with Arab countries and an emerging ArabIsraeli military partnership to combat threats from Iran. He ends the trip in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf state that the West wants to pump out more oil as a salve to a growing global energy crisis set off by the war in Ukraine.
When Biden last visited Israel, in 2016 as vice president, the country had diplomatic ties with just two Arab states, Egypt and Jordan. But now, it is increasingly embedded within the diplomatic ecosystem of the Middle East after several landmark deals brokered by the Trump administration that normalized relations between Israel and three other Arab states: Bahrain, Morocco
and the United Arab Emirates.
In the West Bank, Biden will meet with Palestinian officials and may announce new economic support. But analysts and diplomats said that they did not expect major developments in IsraeliPalestinian relations.
“U.S. engagement, let alone presidential involvement, in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no longer a priority,” said Alon Pinkas, an Israeli former consul general in New York. “The U.S. has reverted or shifted to alliance management, which is why an Israeli-Gulf, counter-Iranian coalition is far more important to the U.S. than solving the conflict.”
Biden and his Israeli hosts are expected to discuss the strengthening of the military coordination system among Israel, its new Arab allies and the U.S. military.
There have even been hints about the involvement of Saudi Arabia in the military coordination, which currently has no overt relationship with Israel but shares its opposition to Iran.
“We are not going to be announcing a normalization with Saudi Arabia on this trip,” Thomas Nides, U.S. ambassador to Israel, said in a recent podcast hosted by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. But this will be the beginning of a process that will “show the importance of regional security,” he added.
Historically, Saudi officials have said they will avoid a formal relationship with Israel until the creation of a Palestinian state. But leading Saudis have become increasingly critical of the Palestinian leadership.
The Israeli news media has also reported on backchannel negotiations to increase the number of Israeli planes allowed to f ly over the Saudi mainland and to secure Israel’s blessing to change the role of international peacekeepers on two strategic small islands near Israel’s southern coast that Egypt handed over to Saudi Arabia in 2017.
Biden’s visit will also give the United States a chance to bridge its differences with the Israeli government over how to contain Iran’s nuclear program.
Since the departure a year ago of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli former prime minister, ties between Israel and the United States have improved.
That dynamic remains despite the recent collapse of Israel’s government and the installation of an interim prime minister, Yair Lapid.
Biden’s talks with the Palestinians promise to be more fraught, however.
The last time Biden visited, the latest Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, brokered by the last Democratic administration, had recently broken down. Renewed talks are considered highly unlikely.