Israel's Netanyahu is plotting a comeback. That could be a problem for Biden's Middle East agenda

When President Joe Biden arrives in Israel Wednesday, he’ll be greeted by a counterpart who shares his moderate, pragmatic style.

But Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid may not hold power for long.

In a few months, Biden may be dealing again with Benjamin Netanyahu, the conservative hardliner who embraced former President Donald Trump and bedeviled former President Barack Obama.

Netanyahu, the longest serving prime minister in Israel’s history and the current opposition leader, is eying a historic comeback in the upcoming elections, even as he stands trial in three different corruption cases.

The 72-year-old leader of the right-wing Likud party has divided Israel for years, being hailed as “King Bibi” among his devoted voters and allies, while loathed by his enemies who accuse him of being corrupt and trying to undermine the judicial system to escape his trial.

Lapid, a centrist who became acting prime minister after the recent collapse of a coalition government, is Netanyahu’s main opponent.

'It's clear who (Biden) would prefer'

Biden has a decades-long history and good personal rapport with Netanyahu; he once said they were “buddies” despite their not-infrequent policy clashes.

Netanyahu's congratulatory tweet to Biden after the 2020 election referred to their "long & warm personal relationship."

But a Netanyahu re-ascendance would complicate Biden’s efforts to revive a nuclear deal with Iran and to pressure Israel to improve its treatment of Palestinians. Netanyahu could go around Biden, as he did with Obama, and deal directly with congressional Republicans.

“Netanyahu just seemed to enjoy really annoying Obama and disrespecting Obama,” said Osamah Khalil, a Syracuse University history professor who specializes in Middle East affairs. Republicans, Khalil said, used Netanyahu to constantly criticize Obama on Israel, which has a powerful political constituency in the United States.

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Experts expect Biden to go out of his way during his trip to avoid putting his thumb on the scale for any candidate.

“It's clear who he would prefer. He’d prefer Lapid,” said David Makovsky, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “But he won't want to do anything that could be used by Bibi in a way that would be a boomerang backlash.”

In fact, Biden is expected to meet with Netanyahu during his three days in Israel. The president's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said it’s “standard protocol” for the president to meet with leaders “across the Israeli political spectrum.”

“This president and previous presidents have wanted to display that the relationship between the United States and Israel transcends politics, it transcends parties,” Sullivan said Monday. “It doesn’t matter who’s in charge in Washington or who’s in charge in Israel.”

Netanyahu's strategy to regain power

Netanyahu was prime minister when Biden took office but was ousted the following June when a coalition government, including eight separate parties, rose to power. It was led by Naftali Bennett and Lapid, who agreed to a rotation for holding the prime minister's office.

The eight-party coalition consisted of Bennett's nationalist party, as well as right-wing, centrist, leftist parties and for the first time in the country’s history, an Arab-Israeli party.

Netanyahu’s re-election campaign is centered around two main themes, namely claiming that Lapid is relying on “terror supporters” to win the election, a reference to the Israeli-Arab parties in parliament, as well as a promise to lower consumer prices in Israel.

“Lapid can’t form a government without the United Arab List (UAL) and the Joint List and the public knows how dangerous that is. I think this message is working pretty well for us,” Micky Zohar, a Likud lawmaker and close Netanyahu confidant, told USA Today. The UAL and Joint List are Arab parties.

Mia Bengel, the spokeswoman for Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, said Netanyahu is the one joining forces "with anti-democratic and illiberal extremists in the hopes of gaining a majority." She called him "an accused criminal who doesn’t hesitate to endanger Israeli democracy in his campaign to escape from the law.”

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Unlike his political rivals, Netanyahu has begun intense election campaigning on social media, uploading clips of him visiting malls and markets in Jerusalem, talking to Israelis about the cost of living.

A new wrinkle for Biden's Middle East agenda?

According to the most recent poll conducted by Israeli newspaper Maariv, Netanyahu’s Likud party will remain the biggest in parliament, receiving 36 seats in the 120-member Knesset. Prime Minister Lapid’s party will be the second biggest, likely electing 23 members. Netanyahu’s block, which consists of Likud, the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, as well as the far-right Religious Zionism party, are projected to receive 61 seats combined, the bare majority needed to form a new government.

“If he does come back, we're going to see yet again, and even more intensely, the gap between where the U.S. would like things to be and where the prime minister is driving them,” said Nimrod Novik, a onetime foreign policy adviser to former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres and now a fellow with the Israel Policy Forum, an organization that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That’s because Netanyahu’s coalition will be beholden to those with the most extreme anti-Arab, pro-settler views, Novik said. And they will have learned from Netanyahu’s last defeat not to “waste the moment” if he regains power.

Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, said Netanyahu could disrupt the understandings that have been reached recently between the U.S. and Israel on how to deal with Iran.

By contrast, Biden and Lapid are simpatico in important ways, sharing the similar experiences of struggling to unite nations riven by political division, Indyk said during a recent interview with Israel Policy Pod. Lapid’s first speech as prime minister reminded Indyk of Biden’s inaugural address, hitting the theme of coming together around common goals.

“That’s the nature of these two politicians,” he said, “pragmatists trying to advance a moderate agenda in a very extreme situation.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden's Middle East agenda could be upended if Netanyahu regains power