Blinken set to meet new Israeli foreign minister
This comes as US moves ahead with talks to revive 2015 pact with Iran that Israel opposes
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
ROME • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to meet Israel's new top diplomat Yair Lapid in Rome yesterday, in the United States' first face-to-face meeting with the freshly installed government that seeks a less combative approach with its main ally Washington.
Mr Lapid, a centrist who delayed his own plans to be prime minister as he masterminded a coalition to unseat veteran leader Benjamin Netanyahu, flew to Rome yesterday to see Mr Blinken, whose plane touched down at midday in the Italian capital as part of his three-nation tour of Europe.
The meeting comes as US President Joe Biden's administration moves ahead with fresh talks on reviving a 2015 accord with Iran - strongly opposed by Israel - in which Teheran drastically scaled back nuclear work in return for promises of sanctions relief.
Mr Biden and Mr Blinken are also eager to preserve a fragile ceasefire that took effect on May 21 between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, after the worst fighting since 2014.
The bloodshed triggered some of the strongest criticism of Israel in memory in the US Congress, with some members of Mr Biden's Democratic Party accusing Mr Netanyahu of excessive force and triggering the crisis by backing far-right Jewish groups that want to change the delicate status quo in the holy city of Jerusalem.
Mr Lapid, who took office on June 13 under Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a nationalist, has accused Mr Netanyahu of jeopardising Israel's once rock-solid support in the United States by openly rallying behind former president Donald Trump's Republican Party.
The new coalition government still sees Iran as the major threat to Israel, and has launched its own strikes on the Gaza Strip - but has pledged to put the alliance with Washington first and to try to keep differences private.
After one of Mr Lapid's telephone conversations with Mr Blinken, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that the two agreed on no surprises in the relationship.
Mr Netanyahu quickly pounced, posting a video in English on social media calling the new government "so dangerous" and speaking of how he, as premier, would sometimes not inform the US of pending Israeli actions.
With tensions still high after last month's violence, a motley coalition getting its bearings in Israel and political uncertainties lingering within the Palestinian Authority, the Biden administration has made clear it is not rushing to make any grand Middle East peace initiatives.
Mr Blinken, speaking in Paris at a forum on the youth-oriented Brut network, said the immediate priority was finding ways to bring humanitarian and reconstruction aid into the densely populated and impoverished Gaza Strip.
He said it was also critical to "avoid provocations and incidents over the coming days, weeks and months that could reignite the violence, and then to work to create a bit more confidence between the Israelis and Palestinians".
The hope is that "there can be conditions, which do not currently exist, to allow perhaps a relaunch of the peace process and the establishment of two states, Israel and Palestine", he said.
"I don't think the conditions are there yet. We have to work on them and we will."
Mr Blinken reiterated that the Biden administration plans to let the Palestine Liberation Organisation reopen its office in Washington, which was closed under Mr Trump in one of the first of many decisions welcomed by Mr Netanyahu.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
