Agencies-Gaza post
Biden heads to Middle East for his first tour as president of U.S.
US President Joe Biden lands in the Middle East on Wednesday for a trip that will see Israeli leaders urge tougher action against Iran, before heading to Saudi Arabia.
Air Force One, which has left the United States, is expected to land at 1230 GMT in Tel Aviv.
The 79-year-old president will meet with Israeli leaders seeking to expand cooperation against Iran and Palestinian leaders frustrated by what they describe as Washington’s failure to curb Israeli aggression.
The persistent frustrations of Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy are nothing new for Biden, who first visited the region in 1973 after being elected to the Senate.
Iran and Israel were then allies, but the Jewish state now sees Tehran as its main threat.
Israeli interim prime minister Yair Lapid, who took office less than two weeks ago, said the talks “will focus primarily on the issue of Iran”.
Moments after Biden’s landing, the Israeli military will show him its new Iron Beam system, an anti-drone laser it claims is crucial to countering the Iranian UAV fleet.
Israel insists it will do whatever it takes to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions and is firmly opposed to a restoration of the 2015 deal that relieved Tehran’s sanctions.
Israel says it is raising 1,000 flags across Jerusalem to welcome the US leader, who has not overturned former President Donald Trump’s controversial decision to recognize the city as the capital of the Jewish state.
Palestinians claim Israelis-annexed East Jerusalem as their capital and, prior to the visit, accused Biden of failing to fulfill his promise to restore the United States as an honest broker in the conflict.
“We hear only empty words and no results,” said Jibril Rajoub, leader of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas’ secular Fatah movement.
Biden will meet Abbas on Friday in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem, but bold announcements towards a new peace process are not expected, meaning the visit could simply aggravate Palestinian frustration.
Israel is also mired in a political stalemate ahead of the November 1 elections, the fifth vote in less than four years.
Relations between the United States and Palestine were recently put to the test by the killing in May of prominent Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while following an Israeli army incursion into the occupied West Bank.
The United Nations concluded that the Palestinian-American citizen was killed by Israeli fire, something Washington found was likely but said there was no evidence that the killing was intentional.
Abu Akleh’s family expressed “outrage” at the Biden administration’s “abject response” to his death, and the White House did not comment on their request to meet the president in Jerusalem.
(Source: AFP)
