Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met on Tuesday in Jerusalem with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who concluded a three-day visit to the region. As with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Gallant focused in the meeting on the security challenges Israel is facing, primarily Iran and its proxies.
For the first time in a long while, Israel and the United States are on the same page regarding the campaign to block Iran’s nuclear program, a senior Israeli security official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
“It is a tragedy that we are forced to deal with less important and burning issues at this time. Our mind is on Iran, but our feet are stuck in Silwan,” he said, referring to the east Jerusalem neighborhood that is a hotspot of Palestinian-Israeli violence.
US concern over the recent escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence was one of the key agenda items in back-to-back visits by senior Biden administration officials over the past 10 days, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, CIA Director Bill Burns and Blinken. The three reportedly also expressed grave concern in their talks with Netanyahu and others over the new government’s accelerated drive to enact a controversial judicial and legal overhaul, which critics regard as an assault on Israel’s democratic foundations.
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