Mad at Biden’s snub, Netanyahu bars ministers from visiting US: Report

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly instructed his cabinet ministers to avoid traveling to the United States and meeting American officials unless he receives an invite to meet with US President Joe Biden at the White House.

“As long as I don’t visit there, nobody does,” an unnamed source quoted Netanyahu as telling his ministers, Israel’s Channel 12 News reported.

Netanyahu, the report added, is “angry he has not been invited yet and believes any minister meeting American government officials would underline that the premier himself has not attended such a meeting.”

The Israeli prime minister seems frustrated by the fact that almost three months since taking the helm of Israel’s most-far-right cabinet, he has yet to be invited to meet Biden in Washington. Reports say there are not even initial talks about coordinating such a trip. 

Washington has recently expressed unease with several of Tel Aviv’s policies, including its plan to radically overhaul the regime’s judicial system and expand illegal settlements across the occupied territories.

Also in its report, Channel 12 said Netanyahu has excluded from his ban Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, a former ambassador to the US, who acts as a kind of emissary on sensitive matters.

It further said Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who was visiting the US this week, had been told not to meet government officials even before the White House announced no such meetings would be held.

Earlier this month, the extremist minister, who also leads the right-wing Religious Zionism party, said the Palestinian town of Huwara “needs to be wiped out.”

US State Department spokesman Ned Price denounced Smotrich’s remarks as “irresponsible, repugnant and disgusting,” calling on the Israeli prime minister and other top officials to publicly disavow the comments.

US condemns Israeli minister’s ‘repugnant’ call

The Biden administration has condemned Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich

An article published by the Middle East Monitor on Monday said Smotrich’s racist remarks had the effect of “a cluster bomb” on Washington-Tel Aviv ties.

“When a US administration boycotts the Israeli finance minister, it is serious. It sends a negative message to investors, bankers and businessmen who are concerned about the consequences of Netanyahu’s changes to the judiciary on the Israeli economy,” read the article.

“What’s more, it is customary for every Israeli prime minister to arrive in Washington shortly after forming his government; such visits have a symbolic importance, and illustrate the special relationship …, but Netanyahu has not received an invitation to visit the US on his re-election, and it is not clear whether or when he will get one.

“Tel Aviv, therefore, may be losing its privileged position in Washington. Smotrich’s racist statement about Huwara had the effect of a cluster bomb on US-Israel relations. So far, it is not clear how this will affect them.”

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