Despite the tensions that exist in their relationships, Joe Biden has so far avoided a sharp public confrontation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; as the American president tries to make it clear that he opposes the bill promoted by the Israeli government for the reform of the Justice, a reform that has shaken the Jewish state in recent months.

Over the past three months, Biden and senior members of his staff have expressed concern over Israeli settlement expansion plans in the West Bank and outbreaks of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.

Most troubling for the White House, however, is the most right-wing administration’s bill in Israel’s history to reform Israel’s judicial system, a reform that gives the (incumbent) administration greater control over Supreme Court justice appointments. The reform bill has plunged Israel into crisis and into an unprecedented popular mobilization with mass protests that forced Netanyahu on Monday to postpone advancing the bill in Parliament.

Biden, who has known Netanyahu for about 40 years, has been straight with him in private phone conversations, according to members of the US president’s staff. At the same time, the occupant of the White House publicly expresses his support for Israel, the strongest US ally in the Middle East.

“The main rationale in his suggestions to the Israeli government is to avoid whenever and wherever possible a sustained public confrontation with Netanyahu,” said Aaron David Miller, a Middle East analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank.

“He doesn’t want fights. Doing so would be a bad move politically and bad in governance. It confuses things and it’s inconvenient.” he emphasized.

For years, US administrations have been cautious in their public criticism of Israel, in part because of the power of pro-Israel lobbies in Washington, the Jewish state’s role as a close US ally and the support Israel enjoys among Americans.

Americans have largely favorable views of Israel. A Gallup poll earlier this month found that, compared to previous years, Americans view Israel much more favorably than the Palestinian Authority, 68 percent to 26 percent.

Representative of the Biden approach was a White House statement released Sunday night calling on “Israeli leaders to find a compromise as soon as possible” regarding the dispute over judicial reform. Anti-reform protests have been taking place for weeks in many Israeli cities and are growing in volume.

“We understand that there is an internal political process that is ongoing. So we have made our concerns about this reform bill very clear and we have also made it very clear that we want a compromise to be found. Therefore, we are monitoring the situation closely,” a senior Biden administration official pointed out.

Dennis Ross, a veteran American negotiator between Israelis and Arabs, said the Biden administration had expressed misgivings about judicial reforms in Israel, but did so in one-on-one talks whenever it had the chance. Ross, who now works with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, said he believed this approach of making the relevant arguments in private conversations was the appropriate approach.

Hallie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, noted that the way the Biden administration has handled this crisis so far is consistent with Biden’s commitment to US-Israel cooperation. “Sometimes friends are more honest with each other behind closed doors, and that seems to be the case here.”he pointed out.

However, keeping his distance from Netanyahu, Biden has yet to invite him to the White House since “Bibi” began his sixth term as prime minister in December.

A senior US administration official said earlier today that there was no plan yet for Netanyahu to visit, but “Israeli leaders have a long tradition of visiting Washington, and Prime Minister Netanyahu will likely make an official visit at some point.”

Later today the US presidency said there are currently no plans for Netanyahu to visit Washington.

On the other hand, there have been no threats from the US administration to limit US funding to Israel, which, according to a Congressional Research Service report released on March 1, is the largest recipient, cumulatively, of foreign aid. US aid after World War II.

There has historically been a reluctance in the US Congress to take such a step, and the US is dependent on Israel in an area where Western concerns about Iran have grown.