Biden Sidesteps Public Dispute with Netanyahu, Despite US Concerns

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the top of the Small Business Administration (SBA) Women's Business Summit at the White House in Washington, US, March 27, 2023. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the top of the Small Business Administration (SBA) Women's Business Summit at the White House in Washington, US, March 27, 2023. (Reuters)
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Biden Sidesteps Public Dispute with Netanyahu, Despite US Concerns

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the top of the Small Business Administration (SBA) Women's Business Summit at the White House in Washington, US, March 27, 2023. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks at the top of the Small Business Administration (SBA) Women's Business Summit at the White House in Washington, US, March 27, 2023. (Reuters)

Despite tensions between them, President Joe Biden has so far avoided an acrimonious public confrontation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while trying to make clear he opposes a judicial overhaul that has shaken the close US ally.

In the last three months, Biden and senior members of his team have expressed alarm about Israeli plans for settlement expansion on the West Bank and about violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Most troubling for the White House, however, was Netanyahu's plan to reshape the Israeli judiciary system to give the government greater control over appointments to the Supreme Court. The decision propelled Israel into a national crisis with massive protests that forced Netanyahu to delay the move on Monday.

Biden, who has known Netanyahu for about 40 years, has been direct with him in private phone calls, aides say, while publicly expressing support for Israel, the strongest US ally in the Middle East.

"The main operating premise toward this Israeli government is to avoid whenever and wherever they can any sustained public confrontation with Netanyahu," said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.

"They don't want a fight. It's bad politics and its bad policy. It's messy and awkward," he said.

US administrations have long been wary of criticizing Israel in part due to the power of pro-Israel lobby groups in Washington, its role as a close ally and the support the country enjoys among ordinary Americans.

The US population largely has favorable views of Israel, home of major religious sites for Christians, Jews and Muslims.

A Gallup poll earlier this month showed that consistent with prior years, Americans view Israel much more favorably than they do the Palestinian Authority, 68% versus 26%.

Emblematic of the Biden approach was a White House statement issued on Sunday night urging "Israeli leaders to find a compromise as soon as possible" as the protests there grew.

"We haven't taken a hands-off approach," said a senior administration official. "We understand that there’s a domestic political process that's playing out. So we’ve been very clear that we have concerns over this reform legislation and we’ve also said very clearly that we want there to be a compromise found. So we’re watching this very closely."

Dennis Ross, a veteran US peace negotiator between Israelis and Arabs, said the Biden administration had expressed its misgivings about Israel’s judicial proposals but had done so privately where possible.

Ross, who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, said he thought that approach of largely making the case in private was the proper one.

Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said the way the Biden administration has handled this crisis thus far is in keeping with Biden's commitment to the US-Israel partnership.

"And sometimes friends are most honest with each other behind closed doors, and it appears that that is what is happening here," she said.

But, keeping a distance from Netanyahu, Biden has yet to invite him to visit the White House since the Israeli began his sixth term as prime minister in December.

A senior administration official said on Tuesday there is no plan as of yet for Netanyahu to visit but "Israeli leaders have a long tradition of visiting Washington, and Prime Minister Netanyahu will likely visit at some point."

On the other hand, there have been no administration threats to limit US funding to Israel which, according to a March 1 Congressional Research Service report, is the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II.

There is historically little appetite in the US Congress to take such a step and the United States depends on Israel in a region where Western concerns about Iran have been growing.



10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
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10 Years after Europe's Migration Crisis, the Fallout Reverberates in Greece and Beyond

File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)
File photo: Migrants of African origin trying to flee to Europe are crammed on board of a small boat, as Tunisian coast guards prepare to transfer them onto their vessel, at sea between Tunisia and Italy, on August 10, 2023. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

Fleeing Iran with her husband and toddler, Amena Namjoyan reached a rocky beach of this eastern Greek island along with hundreds of thousands of others. For months, their arrival overwhelmed Lesbos. Boats fell apart, fishermen dove to save people from drowning, and local grandmothers bottle-fed newly arrived babies.

Namjoyan spent months in an overcrowded camp. She learned Greek. She struggled with illness and depression as her marriage collapsed. She tried to make a fresh start in Germany but eventually returned to Lesbos, the island that first embraced her. Today, she works at a restaurant, preparing Iranian dishes that locals devour, even if they struggle to pronounce the names. Her second child tells her, “‘I’m Greek.’”

“Greece is close to my culture, and I feel good here,” Namjoyan said. “I am proud of myself.”

In 2015, more than 1 million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe — the majority by sea, landing in Lesbos, where the north shore is just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Türkiye. The influx of men, women and children fleeing war and poverty sparked a humanitarian crisis that shook the European Union to its core. A decade later, the fallout still reverberates on the island and beyond.

For many, Greece was a place of transit. They continued on to northern and western Europe. Many who applied for asylum were granted international protection; thousands became European citizens. Countless more were rejected, languishing for years in migrant camps or living in the streets. Some returned to their home countries. Others were kicked out of the European Union.

For Namjoyan, Lesbos is a welcoming place — many islanders share a refugee ancestry, and it helps that she speaks their language. But migration policy in Greece, like much of Europe, has shifted toward deterrence in the decade since the crisis. Far fewer people are arriving illegally. Officials and politicians have maintained that strong borders are needed. Critics say enforcement has gone too far and violates fundamental EU rights and values.

“Migration is now at the top of the political agenda, which it didn’t use to be before 2015,” said Camille Le Coz Director of the Migration Policy Institute Europe, noting changing EU alliances. “We are seeing a shift toward the right of the political spectrum.”

A humanitarian crisis turned into a political one

In 2015, boat after boat crowded with refugees crashed onto the doorstep of Elpiniki Laoumi, who runs a fish tavern across from a Lesbos beach. She fed them, gave them water, made meals for aid organizations.

“You would look at them and think of them as your own children," said Laoumi, whose tavern walls today are decorated with thank-you notes.

From 2015 to 2016, the peak of the migration crisis, more than 1 million people entered Europe through Greece alone. The immediate humanitarian crisis — to feed, shelter and care for so many people at once — grew into a long-term political one.

Greece was reeling from a crippling economic crisis. The influx added to anger against established political parties, fueling the rise of once-fringe populist forces.

EU nations fought over sharing responsibility for asylum seekers. The bloc’s unity cracked as some member states flatly refused to take migrants. Anti-migration voices calling for closed borders became louder.

Today, illegal migration is down across Europe While illegal migration to Greece has fluctuated, numbers are nowhere near 2015-16 figures, according to the International Organization for Migration. Smugglers adapted to heightened surveillance, shifting to more dangerous routes.

Overall, irregular EU border crossings decreased by nearly 40% last year and continue to fall, according to EU border and coast guard agency Frontex.

That hasn’t stopped politicians from focusing on — and sometimes fearmongering over — migration. This month, the Dutch government collapsed after a populist far-right lawmaker withdrew his party’s ministers over migration policy.

In Greece, the new far-right migration minister has threatened rejected asylum seekers with jail time.

A few miles from where Namjoyan now lives, in a forest of pine and olive trees, is a new EU-funded migrant center. It's one of the largest in Greece and can house up to 5,000 people.

Greek officials denied an Associated Press request to visit. Its opening is blocked, for now, by court challenges.

Some locals say the remote location seems deliberate — to keep migrants out of sight and out of mind.

“We don’t believe such massive facilities are needed here. And the location is the worst possible – deep inside a forest,” said Panagiotis Christofas, mayor of Lesbos’ capital, Mytilene. “We’re against it, and I believe that’s the prevailing sentiment in our community.”

A focus on border security

For most of Europe, migration efforts focus on border security and surveillance.

The European Commission this year greenlighted the creation of “return” hubs — a euphemism for deportation centers — for rejected asylum seekers. Italy has sent unwanted migrants to its centers in Albania, even as that faces legal challenges.

Governments have resumed building walls and boosting surveillance in ways unseen since the Cold War.

In 2015, Frontex was a small administrative office in Warsaw. Now, it's the EU's biggest agency, with 10,000 armed border guards, helicopters, drones and an annual budget of over 1 billion euros.

On other issues of migration — reception, asylum and integration, for example — EU nations are largely divided.

The legacy of Lesbos

Last year, EU nations approved a migration and asylum pact laying out common rules for the bloc's 27 countries on screening, asylum, detention and deportation of people trying to enter without authorization, among other things.

“The Lesbos crisis of 2015 was, in a way, the birth certificate of the European migration and asylum policy,” Margaritis Schinas, a former European Commission vice president and a chief pact architect, told AP.

He said that after years of fruitless negotiations, he's proud of the landmark compromise.

“We didn’t have a system,” Schinas said. “Europe’s gates had been crashed."

The deal, endorsed by the United Nations refugee agency, takes effect next year. Critics say it made concessions to hardliners. Human rights organizations say it will increase detention and erode the right to seek asylum.

Some organizations also criticize the “externalization” of EU border management — agreements with countries across the Mediterranean to aggressively patrol their coasts and hold migrants back in exchange for financial assistance.

The deals have expanded, from Türkiye to the Middle East and across Africa. Human rights groups say autocratic governments are pocketing billions and often subject the displaced to appalling conditions.

Lesbos still sees some migrants arrive Lesbos' 80,000 residents look back at the 2015 crisis with mixed feelings.

Fisherman Stratos Valamios saved some children. Others drowned just beyond his reach, their bodies still warm as he carried them to shore.

“What’s changed from back then to now, 10 years on? Nothing,” he said. “What I feel is anger — that such things can happen, that babies can drown.”

Those who died crossing to Lesbos are buried in two cemeteries, their graves marked as “unknown.”

Tiny shoes and empty juice boxes with faded Turkish labels can still be found on the northern coast. So can black doughnut-shaped inner tubes, given by smugglers as crude life preservers for children. At Moria, a refugee camp destroyed by fire in 2020, children’s drawings remain on gutted building walls.

Migrants still arrive, and sometimes die, on these shores. Lesbos began to adapt to a quieter, more measured flow of newcomers.

Efi Latsoudi, who runs a network helping migrants learn Greek and find jobs, hopes Lesbos’ tradition of helping outsiders in need will outlast national policies.

“The way things are developing, it’s not friendly for newcomers to integrate into Greek society,” Latsoudi said. "We need to do something. ... I believe there is hope.”