Israel's new diplomacy seeks to heal wounds of Netanyahu era

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid at the Foreign Affairs Council at EU headquarters in Brussels on July 12, 2021. AFP - JOHN THYS

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Is this a “new start” in relations between Israel and the European Union?

This is in any case the wish expressed by Josep Borrell, the head of EU diplomacy, this Monday, July 12, when he was preparing to receive the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Yair Lapid was in Brussels to meet his counterparts from the Union, an institution openly criticized and despised by Benjamin Netanyahu.

On several fronts, the new Israeli government is trying to get closer to allies with whom relations were strained under Benjamin Netanyahu.

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In Brussels, the head of European diplomacy did not hide his satisfaction at having now new interlocutors on the Israeli side. Yair Lapid's visit is " 

a good opportunity to restart our relations which had deteriorated in the past

 ", said Josep Borrell. Benyamin Netanyahu played on the divisions of the bloc, relying on certain member states closer to him, such as Hungary or Greece, to bypass Brussels. And it has been over ten years since the Association Council between Israel and the EU was convened.

Jordan, too, made no secret of its exasperation with Benyamin Netanyahu's Israel.

Relations had deteriorated to the point that the Israeli embassy in Amman was closed for several months in 2018 and King Abdullah refused in 2019 to extend the lease of two plots to Israel, forcing Israeli farmers to leave. the land they cultivated.

In recent days,

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett

and Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have traveled to Jordan for talks with the King and the Foreign Minister, concluding a deal last week to sell water to Amman.

Naftali Bennett soon received at the White House

The tone of the Israeli authorities is now also less critical of Joe Biden who is trying to renegotiate an agreement with Iran which worries Israel.

And the American president announced that Naftali Bennett would soon be received at the White House.

Critic in recent years of the diplomacy of Benyamin Netanyahu, Yair Lapid, now in business, wants to show that this page has been turned.

But this “new start” risks clashing with the will of Israel's international partners to see a relaunch of the peace process with the Palestinians.

Negotiations that the Bennett-Lapid duo, at the head of a motley coalition, is not ready to start.

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• Israel

• Benjamin Netanyahu

• Naftali Bennett