Israel supporters are freaking out over the fact Biden hasn’t called Netanyahu yet

Joe Biden has been president for almost a month, but he still hasn’t called the leader of America’s closest ally yet.

“Is Biden Ghosting Netanyahu?,” Yahoo wonders. “Call Me Maybe?” is a headline writer’s joke at The Guardian.

“To Netanyahu’s sorrow, it seems that the Americans are very interested in proving that Biden is not such a close personal friend of the prime minister,” laments a columnist at the Israeli paper Makor Rishon.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon even tweeted the Prime Minister’s number at Biden’s Twitter account and called him to phone Netanyahu.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken has downplayed the lack of communication. “They spoke actually during the transition,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer this week. “I think one of the first calls the president had was with the Prime Minister, and I’ve talked to my Israeli counterparts on multiple occasions already.”

It’s difficult to think any of this will end up meaning anything in terms of United States policy. In that same interview with Blitzer, Blinken said that Biden considers Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel, refused to criticize Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights, or distance the new administration from the outlook of Trump’s team.

“Look, leaving aside the legalities of that question, as a practical matter the Golan is very important to Israel’s security, as long as Assad is in power in Syria, as long as long as Iran is present in Syria,” Blinken told Blitzer. “Militia groups backed by Iran, the Assad regime itself. All of these pose a significant security threat to Israel and as a practical matter, control of the Golan in that situation I think remains of real importance to Israel’s security.”

“To reflect on how outrageous this is, imagine if Iran captured the Syrian Golan Heights using Netanyahu’s threats as a pretext — Would Blinken ever excuse it?,” tweeted political analyst Omar Baddar in response to these assertions. “Of course not! Only Israeli land theft is magically justifiable in the name of ‘security’.”

After Danon shared Netanyahu’s number with Biden, former state department Middle East analyst David Aaron Miller replied. “Memo to all interested parties. A call will come. But a clear message is being sent. Netanyahu was Trump’s 3rd call. To quote Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

It’s probably worth remembering that, according to the movie, Dorothy was very much still in Kansas. The whole thing was a dream.

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