One of Mr. Biden’s oldest friends among acting foreign leaders is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, whom he has known and discussed for decades. For a time, the Israeli showed in his office a photograph of Mr. Biden with the inscription: “Bibi: I don’t agree with you at all, but I love you, Joe Biden,” according to a Biden assistant who saw him.
The relationship was tested when Biden, on a visit to Israel in March 2010, learned that the Netanyahu government had approved 1,600 new housing units for Israelis in Palestinian areas, blatantly defying US policy. White House officials were furious, and some argued that the vice president should leave the country before a scheduled dinner at Netanyahu’s home that night.
Biden stayed, believing he could reason with the Israeli leader, and over the dinner rebuked Netanyahu, who blamed a dishonest housing official. “Bibi made all kinds of rationalizations,” said Dennis Ross, an assistant to the National Security Council who was on the trip. “Biden basically rolled his eyes and said something to the effect of ‘Come on, Bibi, this is Joe. I know what is happening. ‘” Mr. Netanyahu agreed to delay the construction of the house, and the immediate crisis passed.
Mr. Ross said Mr. Biden’s method “builds trust, and then you can say really difficult things when you need to, and not just get a brick wall.”
‘Forceful without being rude’
As evidenced by his long-time encounter with Milosevic, Biden can also confront.
That was somewhat uncomfortable during Trump’s impeachment. In 2015, Biden had tricked Ukrainian leaders into firing a corrupt federal prosecutor as a condition of a $ 1 billion US loan guarantee. “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, he will not get the money, ” Biden said in a public appearance in 2018. Trump took advantage of the comments to suggest, without evidence, that Biden had acted incorrectly.
