President Joe Biden spoke on Monday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and invited him to the US later this year, seven months after the Israeli leader took office.
"There'll be a meeting here in the United States sometime in the fall," White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said.
The two leaders had agreed to remain in close touch and “to further discuss matters of mutual concern”, Mr Kirby said.
The invitation came as Israel's governing coalition pushes ahead with a contentious plan to overhaul the country's judiciary, despite growing opposition from within the country's military and a wave of mass protests.
The Prime Minister's office said Mr Netanyahu had told Mr Biden that a bill to remove the Supreme Court's ability to strike down government actions it deemed “unreasonable” would be brought for a parliamentary vote next week.
The issue has soured relations between the two allied nations.
“President Biden reiterated in the context of the current debate in Israel about judicial reform, the need for the broadest possible consensus and that shared democratic values have always been and must remain a hallmark of the US-Israel relationship,” Mr Kirby told reporters on Monday.
He added that during the call, the two leaders consulted on co-ordination to counter Iran, including through regular and ongoing joint military exercises.
Mr Kirby said Mr Biden had stressed the need to take measures to maintain the viability of a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to improve the security situation and the West Bank.
The US President also expressed concern about continued expansion in the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Mr Biden is trying to keep long-time US-Israeli relations on track while facing calls by some American leaders to put pressure on Israel over recent violent incidents in the West Bank. His Democratic Party has become increasingly critical of Israel in recent years.
But no exact date has yet been announced for the meeting and officials on Monday did not specify if the visit would take place at the White House.
“I don't see it as a formal invitation like what [Israeli President Isaac] Herzog is getting or what Netanyahu has got in the past,” Khaled Elgindy, director of Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute told The National.
On Tuesday, Mr Biden will host Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the White House. Mr Herzog will also address a joint session of the US Congress on Wednesday.
The White House said the meetings with Mr Herzog are expected to focus on Israel's role in the region, Russia's relations with Iran and Tehran's “destabilising behaviour in the region”.
Mr Herzog last visited the White House in October.
“I think the Biden administration wants to register some disapproval with Netanyahu without putting too fine a point on it,” Mr Elgindy said.
“They don't want to bash Netanyahu because that doesn't go over well, domestically.
“It looks like they're doing everything short of a formal Netanyahu visit.”
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Gender equality in the workplace still 200 years away
It will take centuries to achieve gender parity in workplaces around the globe, according to a December report from the World Economic Forum.
The WEF study said there had been some improvements in wage equality in 2018 compared to 2017, when the global gender gap widened for the first time in a decade.
But it warned that these were offset by declining representation of women in politics, coupled with greater inequality in their access to health and education.
At current rates, the global gender gap across a range of areas will not close for another 108 years, while it is expected to take 202 years to close the workplace gap, WEF found.
The Geneva-based organisation's annual report tracked disparities between the sexes in 149 countries across four areas: education, health, economic opportunity and political empowerment.
After years of advances in education, health and political representation, women registered setbacks in all three areas this year, WEF said.
Only in the area of economic opportunity did the gender gap narrow somewhat, although there is not much to celebrate, with the global wage gap narrowing to nearly 51 per cent.
And the number of women in leadership roles has risen to 34 per cent globally, WEF said.
At the same time, the report showed there are now proportionately fewer women than men participating in the workforce, suggesting that automation is having a disproportionate impact on jobs traditionally performed by women.
And women are significantly under-represented in growing areas of employment that require science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills, WEF said.
* Agence France Presse
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WHAT IS A BLACK HOLE?
1. Black holes are objects whose gravity is so strong not even light can escape their pull
2. They can be created when massive stars collapse under their own weight
3. Large black holes can also be formed when smaller ones collide and merge
4. The biggest black holes lurk at the centre of many galaxies, including our own
5. Astronomers believe that when the universe was very young, black holes affected how galaxies formed
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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China
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UAE
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Japan
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Norway
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Canada
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UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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