According to two anonymously sourced reports in Axios by Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett made a promise to Biden on the JCPOA and offered a strategy for dealing with Iran during their meeting at the White House on Aug. 27. First off, Bennett promised Biden that although he is against a U.S. return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, he isn’t going to publicly campaign against it, like his predecessor Benjamin Netanyahu, according to two sources briefed on the meeting.
The two sources said Bennett also delivered this message during his meetings with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Aug. 25. “Prime Minister Bennett told the President that regardless of policy differences he wants to work according to rules of honesty and decency,” said a senior Israeli official who attended the meeting. Bennett explained he wants to manage the U.S.-Israel relationship like he manages the relationships within his eclectic government, which has many diverging views, and solve differences in direct private conversations and not in the media, the Israeli officials said.
Barbara Leaf, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs (and a former fellow at Washington Institute for Near East Policy, WINEP) said the White House was satisfied with Bennett’s message, the sources told Axios. Leaf said she spent five hours with Bennett in different meetings, including with the President. She said that regardless of their differences, the relationship got off to a good start. “Leaf said Biden will be frank and tough if needed but only in private and not in the media,” according to the sources.
