It was nerve-wracking, tense, emotional and harrowing, but it finally happened. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and US President Joe Biden met at the White House. The two men met first one-on-one for 50 minutes, officially cementing their new relationship, after which their top staff joined them for an expanded session. “We’ve become close friends,” Biden said during the Oval Office photo op with his guest, allowing Bennett’s aides to happily declare mission accomplished on one of their long list of tasks: giving off a sense that the 78-year-old president and 49-year-old prime minister had become buddies.
“This will be the start of a beautiful friendship,” one of the prime minister’s advisers told Al-Monitor, on condition of anonymity, in an upbeat note following the meeting.
