Netanyahu is fighting for re-election without the wingman Trump

The former presidential base was firmly in place for Israel and Trump fulfilled a list of wishes for the haanykish Netanyahu.

Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, blessed settlements in the West Bank and removed U.S. incentives for Arab countries to normalize ties with the Jewish state.

Netanyahu said he was close to Trump in support of his bid, printing the former president’s face on his posters during past campaigns.

The prime minister said “indeed to his fans: Look, whenever I want, I knock on the door of the White House and the White House opens the door,” said Tamar Hermann, political scientist at the Israel Open University.

U.S. President Joe Biden represents a completely different political reality for Netanyahu, who is seeking to extend his 12 consecutive years in power on March 23rd.

In this vote, “the presence of the American administration is very small,” Hermann said.

Netanyahu and Biden have both confirmed a decade-long relationship, but they have sharp policy differences, especially with respect to Iran.

Biden has returned to seek Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, an agreement seized by Netanyahu that Trump fired.

Democratic president is expected to renew U.S. criticism of the expansion of Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

“There is no love for Netanyahu in this administration and among Democratic elites,” said Shibley Telhami, an expert on U.S. policy in the Middle East at the University of Maryland.

“The problem for them right now is that the practical options for him are almost as bad.”

Several of Netanyahu’s former allies have joined the rival’s right-wing parties.

Censuses show that none of these new groups are likely to influence Likud Netanyahu, but they have moved Israeli politics further to the right.

Biden’s ideology perhaps aligns more closely with the medieval Yesh Atid party led by Yair Lapid, who is expected to finish second behind Likud.

U.S. Democratic political adviser Mark Mellman, who advises the opposition, says Lapid shares Biden’s values ​​and counts the president as a friend.

“Biden wants a two-state solution. There are parties running in Israel that oppose a two-state solution,” Mellman says.

However, “there is nothing [Biden] has done so which shows that he wants to play a favorite here at all. “

David Makovsky, a former head of Washington’s pro-Israel Institute for Near Eastern Policy, says even if Biden wanted to support Netanyahu’s rival, any other coalition could collapse under ideological divisions.

“They agree they want to get rid of Netanyahu. That gets them through the first month, but what do they agree after that?” arsa Makovsky.

In addition, he says, Biden’s administrative attention is elsewhere.

“The administration has gotten a lot on their plate with COVID, COVID, COVID, 500,000 Americans killed, all of Covid’s economic impacts, and it just raises a lot of issues,” he says.

Biden has said he will not back down from some of Trump’s popular moves in Israel.

He has no plans to return the U.S. embassy to Tel Aviv and his administration is backing the Trump-broken agreements that saw Israel normalize ties with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan.

Washington’s criticism of an international criminal court investigation into Israeli war crimes in the West Bank and Gaza across Israel’s political spectrum was also welcomed.

“The U.S. is going to work with whoever shows up,” said Dan Shapiro, who was Barack Obama’s ambassador to Israel.

“But the bigger picture is that President Biden’s current priorities are not usually focused on the Middle East.”

Instead of aiming for a complete peace deal, Biden will focus on improving daily life for Palestinians by renewing aid and renewing diplomatic missions, which Trump cut off, which Shapiro intended.

Domestically, Biden has only limited calls from promoters to advocate harder for the Palestinian cause.

Last week Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and four Democratic senators called on Secretary of State Tony Blinken to pressure Israel to do more to help Palestinians get coronavirus vaccines.

Israel is a world leader in per capita vaccinations, but has only offered a few doses to the Palestinians, who have yet to launch major inoculations in the West Bank or Gaza that is under Egyptian and Israeli blockade.