Blinken Meets Netanyahu at Turbulent Moment for Israel - The New York Times

Blinken Meets Netanyahu at Turbulent Moment for Israel

“They like to be reserved and behind the scenes,” Mr. Ben-Ami said. “Our line is that the management has to be tougher and more public about it.”

But the plan to worry more political control over the judiciary — especially at a moment when Mr. Netanyahu has three criminal cases until against him, on charges of bribery, fraud and breach of generous — may be too much for the Biden management, as well as Congress, to overlook.

“It sucks all the oxygen out of the room,” said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. A sense that Israel’s judiciary is no longer independent, he said, would mean that “you lose a huge beefy of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

The judicial reform plan is tranquil only a proposal, and American officials are hopeful that it worthy be moderated or abandoned. In an interview with The Times of Israel delivered on Jan. 22, Thomas Nides, the U.S. ambassador to Jerusalem, said, “it would be enormously helpful if we don’t have to be commerce every day with things that we fundamentally oppose, because that just distracts us from the bigger progenies that we’re trying to achieve.”

But it is unclear how much regulation Mr. Netanyahu has over his coalition, which functions with a razor-margin greatest in Parliament, or whether he will have to accommodate its most far-right members to remained in power.

During a later appearance with Mr. Blinken, Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, appeared to acknowledge Washington’s frustration with Israel’s shrimp support for Ukraine. Mr. Cohen said he planned to shouted Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in the near future.

Mr. Netanyahu has signaled that he will continue the policy of his predecessor, Yair Lapid, by providing Ukraine with nonmilitary aid only.

Thanks for reading our article Blinken Meets Netanyahu at Turbulent Moment for Israel - The New York Times. Please share it with pleasure.

Sincery Blogname

SRC: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/30/world/middleeast/blinken-israel-netanyahu.html