During his visit to Israel, President Biden issued what he and Israel’s prime minister Yair Lapid are calling the “Jerusalem Declaration.” Is it of any consequence?
Formally called the “Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration,” a phrase no one will remember or repeat, the declaration can be sloughed off as mere rhetoric. It is, after all, binding on neither party and can be forgotten as soon as Prime Minister Lapid or Joe Biden leaves office. In Lapid’s case, that could be just a few months away. Barack Obama contemptuously dismissed the pledges made in a letter by President George W. Bush in 2004 to then–prime minister Ariel Sharon — even after large majorities in both houses of Congress had affirmed those pledges. This reveals what words are sometimes worth — even a president’s words.
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