Jamal Khashoggi’s US lawyer sentenced to three years following detention in UAE

The United States would use force to prevent Iran from acquiring or developing nuclear weapons if all other options fail, President Joe Biden said during an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 news.

Andrew Feinberg reports.

President Joe Biden is asked about the “undeniable gap” between progressive Democrats and him on Israel.

He tells Channel 12: “There are a few of them. I think they’re wrong. I think they’re making a mistake. Israel is a democracy. Israel is our ally ... And I think I make no apologies.”

Mr Biden adds: “There’s no possibility, I think, of the Democratic party, or even a significant portion of the Republican party, walking away from Israel.”

President Joe Biden is six years older than the state of Israel, which was established in 1948, and he’s met every one of the country’s prime ministers since he first became a US senator in 1973.

A member of the US Secret Service has returned to the United States after allegedly assaulting a woman outside a bar and being detained by Israeli national police in Jerusalem.

Josh Marcus reports.

Joe Biden will touch down in Saudi Arabia on Friday in a move that will bring an unceremonious end to his campaign promise to make the wealthy Gulf state a “pariah” in the global community.

The president’s visit, which he attempted to explain in a Washington Post op-ed and through a statement from his press secretary last month, is a clear reversal of his onetime vow to make the Kingom pay for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist critical of the Saudi crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman.

A year and a half into his White House term, Mr Biden’s evolving view on Saudi Arabia remains one of the starkest differences between Joe Biden the president and Joe Biden the presidential candidate.

John Bowden reports.

Before President Joe Biden heads to Saudi Arabia, Andrew Feinberg looks at how foreign policy experts are split on whether the president should be going at all.

As Joe Biden reiterates that “the only thing worse than the Iran that exists now is the Iran with nuclear weapons”, a shocking story from Yahoo News relays a US intelligence report that warns of potential assassination threats from Iran against top Trump administration officials, including the ex-president himself.

“The Iranian regime is waging a multipronged campaign — including threats of lethal action, international legal maneuvering, and the issuance of Iranian arrest warrants and sanctions — against select US officials to avenge the death of [Iranian Revolutionary Guard] Commander Soleimani in January 2020, raising the threat at home and abroad for those Iran views as responsible for the killing.”

Specifically singled out alongside Mr Trump are his former secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and former CENTCOM Commander General Kenneth McKenzie.

Read the full report here.

President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid have signed a joint declaration affirming bonds between counties, security support, and efforts to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon with the United States pledging to use “all elements of its national power to ensure that outcome”.

Full text of the declaration.

Prime Minister Lapid says to President Biden on Iran that he has said many times that “big countries do not bluff”, and that he completely agrees and that on Iran their words should not be a bluff, but the real thing, adding that the Iranian regime must know that if they continue to deceive the world, they will pay a heavy price.

““They want to destroy the only Jewish state in the world. We will never let that happen. Words will not stop them. Diplomacy will not stop them,” he says. “The only way to stop them is to put a credible military threat on the table.”

Prime Minister Lapid reaches out to the leaders of America’s Gulf allies, with whom President Biden will meet this weekend.

“I would like you to pass them all a message from us: Our hand is outstretched for peace. We are ready to share our technology and experience, ready for our people to meet and learn about one another, ready for our scientists to collaborate and our businesses to cooperate.”