Despite having supposedly recovered from COVID (again), Joe Biden canceled nine travel events that had been on his schedule. This is perhaps understandable since those were campaign events and he's no longer campaigning. But now, neither he nor Kamala Harris will be meeting with Bibi Netanyahu, who arrived in Washington yesterday. But weren't we already told that Biden had basically recovered from his latest bout of COVID? In an update last night, his doctor said that the President has taken his 10th dose of Paxlovid and that his “symptoms have almost resolved completely.” I suppose the key word there is "almost" so perhaps some precautions are in order. But this is still the sort of snub that should never happen when the leader of an allied nation shows up in Washington. (NY Post)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming meeting with President Joe Biden has been canceled as the president continues to focus on recovering from COVID-19, according to multiple reports.

The Israeli leader was slated to meet with Biden, 81, on Tuesday to discuss the future of the war in Gaza, but officials in Netanyahu’s office said the meeting has been called off, The Times of Israel and other outlets report.

The decision comes after Biden has remained out of the public eye after testing positive for COVID-19 while traveling in Las Vegas last Wednesday.

Let's give doddering Joe Biden the benefit of the doubt for a change and allow that his COVID diagnosis might be a reason not to meet Bibi in person. But a video conference could still have been arranged and shared with the press, even if both leaders were in the same city, right? Then again, given the condition that Biden has seemed to be in lately, it's hard to say whether any productive results would have come from the conversation. Maybe Netanyahu should have just met with Ron Klain, who is probably running the country at the moment anyway. 

But what is Kamala Harris' excuse? It's true that she's not the President yet (or hopefully ever) and she's not even technically the Democrats' candidate for the White House. But she's still supposedly the Vice President. That's pretty much the definition of the Vice Presidency beyond being the equivalent of a bucket of warm spit. Weddings and funerals or standing in for the POTUS at public events when they are unable to attend. She was literally in Washington, DC yesterday and at the White House. She couldn't have taken time out from badgering delegates to greet the Prime Minister of Israel?

This simply sends a terrible signal to the rest of our allies and our adversaries as well. The United States is supposed to be Israel's closest and most powerful ally, particularly when they are in the midst of fighting a war for their survival that appears to be spreading to multiple fronts. Traditionally, fear of a harsh United States reprisal has kept those adversaries largely at bay. But now the world watches while Joe Biden criticizes Netanyahu's handling of the war and places a hold on arms deliveries that might be "too powerful" to use against Gaza. And today, after agreeing to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress, Bibi is ignored in Washington like an irrelevant or unwanted guest. This will only embolden Israel's critics in the United Nations and elsewhere.

The presidency of Joe Biden has done more to damage our relationship with Israel than any other in my lifetime. And Kamala Harris is making it increasingly clear that if she is elected as the next President, she will inherit and continue Biden's policies when it comes to our closest and most important ally in the Middle East. The vast majority of Americans support Israel. There were already plenty of reasons not to support four more years of either Biden or Harris, but this is one that deserves far more attention than it currently receives.