On an upcoming trip to the Middle East and North Africa, Jill Biden, the U.S. first lady, plans to visit Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Portugal but not Israel. And Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, reportedly scrapped a planned trip to Israel, according to news reports.
On June 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement, which stated, in part: “I have heard all of the reports about Iran. I have a sharp and clear message for both Iran and the international community: Israel will do whatever it needs to do to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”
The first lady “is expected to attend the wedding of the Jordanian Crown Prince—an unelected monarch whose country is majority Palestinian—as part of her visit. But she will skip the region’s only true democratic nation,” Joel Pollak reported in Breitbart.
“The Biden administration has refused to engage directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who won Israel’s elections last November but has yet to receive a customary White House invitation,” Pollak added. “The Biden administration appears to be isolating Israel as a way to exert leverage within internal domestic Israeli politics, and over Israel’s policy on Iran and the Palestinians.”
