“Joe, we’ve had a long & warm personal relationship for nearly 40 years, and I know you as a great friend of Israel.”
By: A7 Staff
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday morning congratulated Joe Biden after US news outlets declared him the winner of the election.
“Congratulations Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Joe, we’ve had a long & warm personal relationship for nearly 40 years, and I know you as a great friend of Israel. I look forward to working with both of you to further strengthen the special alliance between the U.S. and Israel,” he tweeted.
Netanyahu also thanked Trump for his friendship and actions taken during his presidency.
“Thank you Donald Trump for the friendship you have shown the state of Israel and me personally, for recognizing Jerusalem and the Golan, for standing up to Iran, for the historic peace accords and for bringing the American-Israeli alliance to unprecedented heights.”
Last night, opposition Chairman MK Yair Lapid rebuked Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi for maintaining silence hours after American media outlets announced Joe Biden the winner of the presidential election.
“The fact that Netanyahu, Gantz, and Ashkenazi have not yet congratulated the president-elect of the United States is shameful cowardice that harms the interests of the State of Israel.
“If the President of France, the German Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister can do it, so can you,” Lapid tweeted.
Palestinian Arab leaders on Saturday welcomed the victory of Joe Biden in the US presidential election.
Nabil Shaath, a senior Palestinian Authority (PA) official, was quoted by the Anadolu news agency as having said that “nothing was worse than Trump’s era, his departure is a gain.”
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) also welcomed the results and tweeted, “America Detrumped!”
“The world also needs to be able to breathe. Trumpism must be carefully scrutinized & remedied to restore the human, moral & legal equilibrium within and beyond the US. Such phenomena do not emerge from a vacuum. Now is the time for holistic & bold therapeutics,” she added.
However, so far there has been no official statement from PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Biden’s victory.
The PA’s relationship with the Trump administration has been strenuous. PA leaders have rejected Trump’s peace proposal outright, and dismiss the idea that his administration could mediate impartially on this issue.
The PA has been boycotting the administration since 2017, when Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The PA demands that eastern Jerusalem be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
In August of 2018, Trump’s administration decided to completely halt its funding for the UN agency for “Palestinian refugees” (UNRWA), which had previously stood at around $350 million a year.
Later, it announced it would cut $25 million more in direct aid to six hospitals that primarily serve Palestinian Arabs in Jerusalem.
In another move, Washington cut aid to the PA for programs supporting conflict resolution with Israelis.
Before this week’s vote, PA cabinet leader Mohammad Shtayyeh said a Trump victory will be disastrous for his people and the world at large.
“If we are going to live another four years with President Trump, God help us, God help you and God help the whole world,” he said. (INN)