Prior to visiting an eastern Jerusalem hospital on Thursday as part of a nearly three-day trip to Israel, U.S. President Joe Biden’s motorcade was missing its Israeli flag.
Despite flying the Israeli flag on the armored presidential state car (nicknamed “the Beast”) while in the rest of the Jewish state, the flag was noticeably gone on the last leg of his visit. Only an American flag was flapping in the breeze.
When the motorcade traveled to Bethlehem for the president to meet with Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, it flew the American and Palestinian flags.
The Biden administration also refused Israeli officials’ request to accompany the president to the Augusta Victoria Palestinian hospital. One senior Israeli official said at the time that the request was a matter of Israeli sovereignty. At the hospital, Biden announced $100 million in aid for Palestinian medical projects based in the capital of Israel.
In Bethlehem, Biden reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution “on the 1967 lines with land swaps mutually agreed by the Israelis and Palestinians.” He also expressed the U.S. position that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, though “specific boundaries must be resolved by final-status negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis through dialogue.”