Meeting between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett

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US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will hold their first face-to-face meeting on Thursday. The new Israeli leader is looking to press President Biden to give up the pursuit of reviving the Iran nuclear deal. Bennett made clear the top priority of the visit to the White House is to persuade Biden not to return to the nuclear accord. He argued Iran has already advanced in its uranium enrichment and relief in sanctions would give Iran more resources to back the enemies of Israel in the region. On Wednesday, the Israeli leader separately met with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to discuss Iran and other issues. Point to be noted that the visit was his first to the US as Israeli Prime Minister.

Bennett informed his Cabinet ahead of the trip that he would tell the American president that now is the time to halt the Iranians, to stop this thing, and not to reenter a nuclear deal. The deal has already expired and is not relevant, even to those who thought it was once relevant. President Biden has made clear his desire to find a path to salvage the 2015 landmark pact cultivated by Barack Obama’s administration but Donald Trump scuttled it in 2018. But the US in direct talks with Iran have stalled and Washington continues to maintain crippling sanctions on the country as regional hostilities simmer. Trump’s decision to withdraw from Iran’s nuclear deal led Tehran to abandon overtime every limitation the accord imposed on its nuclear enrichment.

Bennett said Iran now enriches a small amount of uranium up to 63%, a short step from weapons-grade levels, compared with 3.67% under the deal. The Biden-Bennett meeting came weeks after Ebrahim Raisi was sworn in as the new President of Iran. 60-years old Raisi is a conservative cleric with close ties to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has suggested he’ll engage with the US But he also has struck a hard-line stance, ruling out negotiations designed at limiting Iranian missile development and support for regional militias. Bennett is also looking to turn the page from his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu had a close relationship with Trump after frequently clashing with Obama. Biden has met with every Israeli prime minister since Golda Meir.