Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomed on Tuesday Amos Hochstein, a senior Biden administration official to reportedly discuss "regional issues and issues related to the close cooperation between the United States and Israel."
Hochstein, who serves as the U.S. Special Presidential Coordinator for Global Infrastructure and Energy Security, is expected to discuss potential Saudi-Israeli normalization and tensions with the terror organization Hezbollah with the Israeli premier.
The high-level meeting in Jerusalem comes amid strained ties between the Biden and Netanyahu administrations due to the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul and settlement expansion plans.
In a recent CNN interview, U.S. President Joe Biden blasted Netanyahu’s current coalition, as one of Israel’s “most extreme.” The American president also claimed that a Saudi-Israeli normalization agreement was “long way off.”
Hochstein, born in Israel, played an instrumental role in realizing a maritime border agreement between Lebanon and Israel in 2022. At the time, the senior U.S. official stressed the unique nature of the Lebanese-Israeli agreement. “This is clearly a historic day for two countries that never ended their state of war,” Hochstein said.
There were concerns that the powerful Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah would oppose the Lebanese-Israeli agreement. In the end, the Shiite Islamist fundamentalist organization tacitly greenlighted the agreement due to the expectations it would benefit from an inflow of funds to the cash-strapped Lebanese economy.
However, Hezbollah’s tone has recently moved into a far more belligerent direction. In late June, UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping mission on the Lebanese-Israeli border, confirmed that Hezbollah operatives had illegally built an outpost on the Israeli side of the border in a contested area known as Shebaa Farms.
While Israel prefers a diplomatic solution, IDF officials have warned that it would use force if necessary to remove Hezbollah members from its territory.
This article originally appeared on All Israel News and is reposted with permission.