Eleven weeks into his third stint as Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to be received at the White House, signalling apparent US unhappiness over his right-wing government’s policies.
Most new Israeli leaders had visited the US or met the president by this point in their premierships, according to a Reuters review of official visits going back to the late 1970s.
Only two of 13 previous prime ministers heading a new government waited longer.
The White House declined to confirm Mr Netanyahu has yet to be invited.
A State Department representative referred Reuters to the Israeli government for information about the prime minister’s travel plans.
Israel’s embassy in Washington declined to comment.
“The message they clearly want to send is: If you pursue objectionable policies, there’s no entitlement to the Oval Office sit-down,” said David Makovsky, a former senior adviser to the Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations, now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Since the start of the year, demonstrators have filled Israel’s streets to protest the government’s plan to curb the power of the Supreme Court, which critics say removes a check on the governing coalition.
Amid escalating West Bank violence, the right-wing government’s action authorising settler outposts and inflammatory comments from a member of Netanyahu’s cabinet with responsibilities for Jewish settlements have drawn criticism from US officials, including from Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin during a visit to Israel last week.
Read the article by Simon Lewis in The New Daily.