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Biden and Netanyahu meet for the first time this year, signaling friendship amid disagreements
(JTA) — After months of icy relations, President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met face to face for the first time since Netanyahu’s return to office late last year — with both appearing eager to convey that the U.S.-Israel alliance remains on solid footing despite their disagreements.
The two leaders have been at odds for the better part of a year over a range of issues, from Netanyahu’s effort to weaken the Israeli court system to his far-right governing partners to the Biden administration’s attempts to reenter an agreement with Iran. Biden has demurred on inviting Netanyahu to the White House, and the nine months during which the men did not meet is the longest any Israeli prime minister has waited for a presidential meeting in 50 years. Earlier this summer, Biden invited Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Washington, D.C., a gesture seen as a snub of Netanyahu.
The meeting on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City took place as hundreds of people, led by Israeli expatriates, gathered to protest Netanyahu and his judicial overhaul. The protesters, who are linked to a larger protest movement in Israel, say the legislation will gut the Israeli Supreme Court and erode Israel’s democracy — a position Biden has echoed repeatedly, including at Wednesday’s meeting.
But in their press conference, the president and prime minister both broadcast an image of conviviality and stressed points of agreement despite the notes of tension. The two leaders joked with each other, each mentioning their decades-long relationship, which dates back to Biden’s time as a Democratic senator and Netanyahu’s term as Israel’s U.N. ambassador in the 1980s.
“Joe, we’ve been friends for over 40 years, and our friendship goes a long way,” Netanyahu said. “And can take us a long way.”
Biden and Netanyahu met privately following the press conference, and Netanyahu will address the U.N. General Assembly on Friday.
On one key issue, Biden and Netanyahu appear to be relatively aligned: the prospect for a U.S.-brokered peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The prospects of a Saudi-Israel deal have brightened in recent weeks as Biden brokered an agreement earlier this month, at the G-20 summit of industrial nations in India, to forge a trade corridor between India and Europe that would include hubs in Saudi Arabia and Israel.
At the press conference, Netanyahu said a peace agreement with Saudi Arabia was possible while Biden is president. Biden’s first term will conclude in January 2025; he is running for reelection.
“I think that under your leadership was president, we can forge a historic peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia,” Netanyahu said. “I think such a piece would go a long way first to advance the end of the Arab Israeli conflict, achieve reconciliation between the Islamic world and the Jewish state and advance a genuine peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”
Biden agreed. “If 10 years ago we were talking about normalization with Saudi Arabia, we’d be speaking to each other like, ‘Who’s been drinking what?” he said.
Biden also mentioned the initiative in his speech to the General Assembly on Tuesday, saying the trade corridor would “spur opportunities and investment across two continents.”
“This is part of our effort to build a more sustainable, integrated Middle East,” Biden said in his speech. “It demonstrates how Israel’s greater normalization and economic connection with its neighbors is delivering positive and practical impacts even as we continue to work tirelessly to support a just and lasting peace between he Israelis and Palestinians — two states for two peoples.”
Netanyahu has supported such a trade route for decades, and appeared elated that Biden was placing the proposed corridor front-and-center in U.S. diplomacy. “Such a corridor will make Israel an important hub and a highway of unprecedented prosperity,” he told Biden.
Saudi Arabia’s leaders have been less bullish than Israel or the United States on the prospect of a deal, but they have signaled a degree of enthusiasm. One sign of that positivity was a conference they helped convene on the sidelines of the United Nations to revive sustained Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which haven’t occurred for nearly a decade, and which Saudi leaders say would be critical to advancing peace between their country and Israel.
Despite their mutual optimism about an accord with Saudi Arabia, the press conference was replete with evidence of the two leaders’ disagreements over Israel’s democratic trajectory.
“We’re going to discuss some of the hard issues,” Biden said. “That is, the wholly democratic values that lie at the heart of our relationship, including checks and balances in our systems.”
Netanyahu said he was intent on preserving Israel’s democracy. “I want to reassure here before you, Mr. President, that one thing is certain, and one thing will never change. And that is Israel’s commitment to democracy,” he said. “We will continue to uphold the values that both our proud democracies cherish.”
Both leaders also mentioned Iran before they closed their meeting to media but did not seem to be particularly at odds when it came to that issue. In recent days, Biden has drawn criticism from American foreign policy hawks for a prisoner exchange he brokered with Iran that also released money for humanitarian assistance to Iran.
Biden said their discussion would include “ensuring that Iran never never acquires a nuclear weapon. Because even though we have some differences, my commitment to Israel, you know, is ironclad.”
“I appreciate Mr. President, your continuous commitment to prevent Iran from achieving nuclear weapons capability,” Netanyahu said. “That’s critical.”
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US Democrats Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia University Activist Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention
US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses attendees as she takes part in a protest calling for a ceasefire in Gaza outside the US Capitol, in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Leah Millis
Democrats in the US Congress are largely defending a leading anti-Israel agitator at Columbia University in New York following news of his arrest and detainment by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian from Syria who completed post-graduate studies at Columbia in December, was apprehended by federal authorities on Saturday night and transported to an immigration jail in Louisiana. The pro-Hamas activist was informed that his green card had been revoked and that he would be deported from the United States.
In a statement, the US Department of Homeland Security said ICE agents arrested Khalil “in support of” an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump aimed at combating antisemitism on university campuses.
“Khalil led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. ICE and the Department of State are committed to enforcing President Trump’s executive orders and to protecting US national security,” the department said.
US President Donald Trump defended Khalil’s arrest and said it will be the first of many.
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other universities across the country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitism, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “Many are not students; they are paid agitators. We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again.”
However, a federal judge in New York City on Monday ordered that Khalil not be deported by the Trump administration until the court ruled on a lawsuit presented by his lawyers. According to ICE, the activist is currently being held at the Lasalle Detention facility in Louisiana. Khalil’s case is set to be heard on Wednesday.
Many observers criticized Khalil’s arrest and detainment, arguing that the Trump administration both violated his right to due process and undermined free speech. Critics also argued that the Trump administration does not possess the right to unilaterally revoke green cards from legal residents.
Congressional Democrats largely condemned the ICE arrest of Khalil, arguing that the Trump administration should release the pro-Hamas activist immediately.
“The warrantless arrest of any legal permanent resident seemingly solely over their speech is a chilling, McCarthyesque action in response to the exercise of first amendment rights to free speech,” said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, lambasted the arrest, posted on social media that detaining a legal resident “for exercising his right to free speech is something we’d expect from Russia — NOT AMERICA [sic].”
The official BlueSky account of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee accused the Trump administration of seeking retribution against Khalil for expressing “his First Amendment rights in a way Donald Trump didn’t like” and condemned the White House for practicing “straight up authoritarianism.”
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), one of the most outspoken critics against Israel in Congress, said that Khalil’s arrest is part of a broader effort “to shred our constitutional rights to free speech and due process.” In addition, Tlaib spearheaded a letter to US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, demanding that Khalil be “freed from DHS custody immediately.” Thirteen other Democrats signed the letter.
The letter argued that Khalil has “not been charged or convicted of any crime” and that the Trump administration targeted him “solely for his activism and organizing as a student leader,” as well as his efforts in opposing Israel’s “brutal assault of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” The missive also claimed that the arrest of Khalil represents another example of the Trump administration’s purported “anti-Palestinian racism” and accused the White House of trying to dismantle the “Palestine solidarity movement in this country.” The lawmakers warned that the Trump administration’s tactics against Khalil “will be applied to any and all opposition to his undemocratic agenda.”
Some observers noted out that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the most vocal opponents of the Jewish state in the US Congress, did not sign onto the letter calling for Khalil’s release. Though Ocasio-Cortez has spoken out in defense of Khalil, some on the political left have repudiated her for not taking more strident anti-Israel stances in the 16 months following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel. The lawmaker came under fire by some of the political left last summer for calling for the release of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) also repudiated the arrest, writing that Khalil is “entitled to First Amendment protections like everyone in this country.”
Despite the widespread backlash over Khalil’s arrest, many congressional Republicans praised the announcement, arguing that the Trump administration has taken aggressive action to protect Jewish Americans and clamp down on antisemitism.
While at Columbia, Khalil spearheaded multiple pro-Hamas demonstrations on campus. He was a participant in Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD), a constellation of 100 anti-Israel campus organizations calling for the Ivy League institution to cut ties with the Jewish state.
In the aftermath of Khalil’s arrest, video circulated online showing the activist leading a takeover of a campus building at neighboring Barnard College. During the unsanctioned demonstration, activists spread pamphlets glorifying the Hamas Oct. 7 massacres across southern Israel.
In addition, Khalil helped lead the infamous Hamilton Hall takeover on Columbia’s campus in the final weeks of the 2023-2024 school year.
US Speaker of the House Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) defended Khalil’s arrest, saying, “If you are on a student visa and you’re an aspiring young terrorist who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you’re going home.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) condemned Democrats for “fighting for a pro-Hamas foreigner who has made life hell for Jews on campus.”
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) also lauded the detainment of Khalil, writing that “obtaining a US visa is a privilege, not a right. Friends of Hamas — don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”
In the year following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 slaughters across Israel, Columbia University has emerged as a hotbed of anti-Israel student activism. Last spring, anti-Israel students and faculty erected a student encampment, protesting the university’s ties to the Jewish state. Moreover, Columbia has suffered an exodus of financial support from Jewish donors and alumni, alleging that the university has dragged its feet in combating antisemitism on campus.
Last week, the Trump administration cut $400 million in grants originally intended for Columbia, arguing that the university has not done enough to protect Jewish students. Mounting pressure from the Trump administration reportedly caused the university to collaborate with ICE to detain Khalil.
The post US Democrats Demand Release of Pro-Hamas Columbia University Activist Mahmoud Khalil From ICE Detention first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s President to Trump: I Will Not Negotiate, ‘Do Whatever the Hell You Want’
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian attends a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Sept. 16, 2024. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Majid Asgaripour via REUTERS
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran would not negotiate with the US while being threatened, telling President Donald Trump to “do whatever the hell you want,” Iranian state media reported on Tuesday.
“It is unacceptable for us that they [the US] give orders and make threats. I won’t even negotiate with you. Do whatever the hell you want,” state media quoted Pezeshkian as saying.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that Tehran would not be bullied into negotiations, a day after Trump said he had sent a letter urging Iran to engage in talks on a new nuclear deal.
While expressing openness to a deal with Tehran, Trump has reinstated the “maximum pressure” campaign he applied in his first term as president to isolate Iran from the global economy and drive its oil exports down towards zero.
In an interview with Fox Business, Trump said last week, “There are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal” to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Iran has long denied wanting to develop a nuclear weapon. However, it is “dramatically” accelerating enrichment of uranium to up to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade level, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, has warned.
Iran has accelerated its nuclear work since 2019, a year after then-President Trump ditched Tehran’s 2015 nuclear pact with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy.
The post Iran’s President to Trump: I Will Not Negotiate, ‘Do Whatever the Hell You Want’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syrians Riot in Front of Jewish Museum in Munich Amid Rise in Antisemitic Incidents
Illustrative: Pro-Hamas demonstrators marching in Munich, Germany. Photo: Reuters/Alexander Pohl
Three young Syrian men rioted in front of the Jewish Museum in Munich this past weekend, spitting on photographs of Israeli hostages and deceased soldiers before one of the assailants threatened security personnel with a knife.
The incident, first reported by German media, was one of the latest antisemitic cases in a country that has experienced a surge in open hatred toward Jews since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
During the Gaza conflict, the Jewish Museum has displayed photographs of hostages taken by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel as well as deceased Israeli soldiers, along with candles, to honor and remember them.
On Saturday afternoon, three men — Syrian citizens living in Austria — vandalized the memorial by spitting on it while shouting antisemitic slogans, the German newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Jüdische Allgemeine reported.
After witnessing the attack, two employees from the Jewish community’s security service tried to stop the assailants, who responded aggressively. One of the three men, a 19-year-old, allegedly kicked one of the employees before drawing a knife.
Several police officers assigned to protect the Jewish Center, located next to the museum, noticed the incident and intervened. Soon afterward, more than 30 officers arrived at the scene. Police and security guards had to threaten to use their firearms before the teenager dropped the knife.
According to local police, the man and his two accomplices, a 20-year-old and a 31-year-old, have all been arrested and are under investigation for threats, assault, defamation, and insulting the memory of the deceased.
The Munich Public Prosecutor’s Office has taken over the case, with senior prosecutor Andreas Franck, who also serves as the antisemitism commissioner of the Bavarian judiciary, overseeing the case.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza.
In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally-funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
However, experts believe that the true number of incidents is much higher but not recorded because of reluctance on the part of the victims.
“Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have,” Felix Klein, the German federal government’s chief official dealing with antisemitism, told The Algemeiner in an interview in 2023.
Earlier this year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz condemned the ongoing discrimination faced by the Jewish community, calling it “outrageous and shameful.”
Last month, Germany’s federal parliament, the Bundestag, passed a motion to address antisemitism and hostility toward Israel in schools and universities, seeking to combat a surge in pro-Hamas demonstrations on campuses and antisemitic incidents across the country.
Jewish students at German universities widely expressed a growing sense of insecurity and uneasiness following Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel, amid a slew of incidents purportedly meant to protest the war in Gaza.
The recently passed parliamentary motion stipulates that the federal government — in collaboration with the ministers of education and the German Rectors’ Conference, an association of state and state-recognized universities — must ensure that antisemitic behavior in educational institutions results in sanctions.
“This includes the consistent enforcement of house rules, temporary exclusion from classes or studies, and even … expulsion,” the motion reads.
The post Syrians Riot in Front of Jewish Museum in Munich Amid Rise in Antisemitic Incidents first appeared on Algemeiner.com.