President Joe Biden has threatened the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes ahead with judicial reforms that are opposed by that country’s political opposition.
As Breitbart News has noted, most of these reforms parallel existing practice within the U.S., and one that will go up for a vote next week is grudgingly accepted even by some members of Israel’s left-wing legal fraternity.
Nevertheless, Biden has taken sides against Netanyahu’s government as it attempts to rein in the power of the most powerful judicial branch in the democratic world, fulfilling an election promise to conservative voters.
The threat came in the form of an interview with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who has become increasingly shrill in his own criticism of the Netanyahu government and Israeli policies more generally.
Friedman wrote:
Indeed, every Israeli leader should ponder this line from Biden: The protest movement demonstrates “the vibrancy of Israel’s democracy, which must remain the core of our bilateral relationship.”
When Biden said that to me, I can tell you he was speaking from his head and his heart. He is basically pleading with Netanyahu and the prime minister’s supporters to understand: If we are not seen to share that democratic value, it will be difficult to sustain the special relationship that Israel and America have enjoyed for the last 75 years for another 75 years.
Asked Wednesday about Biden’s reported remarks, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden wished to stress the importance of reaching a broad consensus among Israel’s various political parties.
Netanyahu, however, reportedly told the president in a phone call earlier in the week that the opposition was not serious about negotiations, which he had tried earlier this year, and just wanted to stop the legislation.
On Wednesday, Israel’s ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, alluded to the issue in addressing a joint special session of Congress: “Israel and the United States will inevitably disagree on many matters. But we will always remain family.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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