For their part, many Israelis view Biden as a throwback president, a staunch supporter of Israel who is neither the right-wing booster Donald Trump was nor the ideological scold that Barack Obama was seen to be.
“His relation to Israel, his relationship to foreign policy is different. He’s a realist, a practical man,” said Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to the United States.
Discussions between Biden and Prime Minister Yair Lapid could cover very different ground than in the meetings between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump, who dramatically tilted U.S. policy toward Israel by moving the embassy to Jerusalem, approving the annexation of the Golan Heights and declaring West Bank settlements legal.
But like Netanyahu, Trump has declined to retire from political life. The former president is weighing a comeback run in 2024, and Israelis know that the current moment, with centrists in both Washington and Jerusalem, may be fleeting.
