Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu confirms meeting this week with Biden before speech to Congress

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet with President Biden on Tuesday, a day before giving a much-anticipated speech to Congress on the war in Gaza and the crisis in the Middle East, the prime minister’s office confirmed Sunday in a statement.

Mr. Netanyahu has had a strained relationship with Mr. Biden as the clash with Palestinian Hamas militants who carried out the Oct. 7 terror attack approaches its 10th month. He delayed his departure from Israel until Monday for the meeting with Mr. Biden, who is recovering from a bout of COVID-19.

The Israeli prime minister famously did not meet with former President Barack Obama or then-Vice President Biden on another trip to Washington to give a joint speech to Congress in 2015 to argue against Mr. Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, a speech that infuriated U.S. officials at the time.

Congressional Republicans led the push for Mr. Netanyahu to deliver this week’s address. Biden administration officials said last week that Mr. Netanyahu this time likely would meet with the president and with Vice President Kamala Harris before the congressional speech.

Although U.S. and Israeli leaders once routinely traded visits, this will be the first time Mr. Netanyahu has come to Washington since his conservative, ultranationalist coalition regained power in late 2022. Many in Mr. Biden’s progressive political base have been sharply critical of the Netanyahu government’s handling of the Gaza war, as the reported death toll for Palestinian militants and civilians is nearing 40,000 since Oct. 7.

Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s top national security aide, said last week he did not expect Mr. Netanyahu’s visit to be as confrontational as the one in 2015. The U.S. said has not seen the speech but had been discussing its contents with senior Israeli government officials, Mr. Sullivan told the Aspen Security Forum last week.

“Our expectation is that his speech will be one that doesn’t look like 2015,” Mr. Sullivan said, according to Politico. “It looks like what it should in the circumstances of today, and that is how the U.S. and Israel are trying together to face down the terrorist threat to coordinate together on the regional challenges that both of our countries are facing.”