US Vice President Joe Biden will arrive in Israel for a two-day visit next week.
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Biden heads to Jerusalem and Ramallah, in the West Bank, for meetings Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (neh-ten-YAH’-hoo) and President Reuven Rivlin (reh-OO’-vehn REEV’-lihn), as well as with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (mahk-MOOD’ ah-BAHS’).
They also discussed strategic relations, regional and worldwide efforts to combat terrorism, action to resolve the Syrian conflict through political solution and methods to revive Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations.
But his visit comes amid a 5-month wave of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories that has killed 180 Palestinians as well as 28 Israelis, an American, a Sudanese and an Eritrean, according to an Agence France-Presse toll. No other public events, such as a speech or press conference, have been announced.
According to Jpost.com, one issue to be discussed during Biden’s visit will be the memorandum of understanding outlining Washington’s security aid to Israel over the next ten years.
He will also meet former Israeli president Shimon Peres. The talks come as the USA seeks to soften Israel’s concerns about the lifting of sanctions against Iran as part of a nuclear deal.
During the meeting, attended by IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and Phil Breedlove, Commander, US European Command, Ya’alon expressed his appreciation of army and intelligence cooperation between Israel and the US and said “we see the US as our strongest ally”. We are meeting a moral obligation. It is overwhelmingly in the self-interest of the United States of America to have a secure and democratic friend, a strategic partner like Israel.
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The current $30-billion aid package, signed in 2007, is set to expire next year. Biden and Netanyahu met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.
