Netanyahu addresses Israel-Diaspora relations in Zoom call with Jewish leaders
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu touted his warm relationship with President Joe Biden and addressed concerns about Israeli-Diaspora relations in a private Zoom call with top leaders of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Thursday.
Netanyahu told the 115 participants representing the group’s 53 member organizations that Israel must be welcoming to all Jews, regardless of their backgrounds, according to a call attendee.
During the off-the-record session, the prime minister also took questions from the group’s top leadership about the U.S.-Israel relationship, the Abraham Accords and Israeli innovation with regards to COVID-19, the person who was on the call said.
Netanyahu, who sat in front of Israeli and American flags, spoke warmly of his long standing relationship with Biden.
Addressing Jewish leaders (with American and Israeli flags behind him), the pm responded to Qs about U.S.-Israel relations, Israel-Diaspora relations, peace, Iran and Covid, according to a call attendee.
Netanyahu spoke warmly of his longstanding friendship with President Biden pic.twitter.com/RnwL1RZVJJ
— Jacob Kornbluh (@jacobkornbluh) February 25, 2021
The call was part of a series of webinars that have been scheduled instead of the group’s usual February mission to Israel. Israeli candidates who spoke to the group in recent weeks include Yair Lapid, the current leader of the opposition; Gideon Sa’ar, the former Likud colleague of Netanyahu who has formed a new party to challenge him; Naftali Bennett, another challenger from Netanyahu’s right flank whose base is in West Bank settlements; Merav Michaeli, the newly-elected Labor chairwoman; and Yitzhak Pindrus, representing the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism list.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO