By JOSH BOAK, JOSEF FE­D­ER­MAN and AAMER MAD­HANI | AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

JERUSALEM (AP) — Joe Biden opened his first vis­it to the Mideast as pres­i­dent on Wednes­day by de­clar­ing a “bone deep” bond be­tween the Unit­ed States and Is­rael and pledg­ing to strength­en eco­nom­ic con­nec­tions be­tween the two coun­tries go­ing for­ward.

He did not men­tion one of the larg­er goals of his vis­it: as­sur­ing un­easy Is­raeli and Sau­di Ara­bi­an of­fi­cials that he is com­mit­ted to pre­vent­ing Iran from be­com­ing a nu­clear pow­er.

“We have a full agen­da over the next few days, be­cause the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Is­rael and the Unit­ed States cov­ers every is­sue that mat­ters to our mu­tu­al fu­ture,” said Biden, who was mak­ing his 10th vis­it to Is­rael. “We are unit­ed in our shared val­ues and our shared vi­sion.”

Is­raeli of­fi­cials said Iran’s quick­ly evolv­ing nu­clear pro­gram is at the top of their agen­da for talks with the U.S. pres­i­dent. Biden made re­viv­ing the Iran nu­clear deal, bro­kered by Barack Oba­ma in 2015 and aban­doned by Don­ald Trump in 2018, a key pri­or­i­ty as he en­tered of­fice.

But in­di­rect talks for the U.S. to re-en­ter the deal have stalled as Iran has made rapid gains in de­vel­op­ing its nu­clear pro­gram. That’s left the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion in­creas­ing­ly pes­simistic about res­ur­rect­ing the deal, which placed sig­nif­i­cant re­stric­tions on Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram in ex­change for sanc­tions re­lief.

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Yair Lapid and Pres­i­dent Isaac Her­zog made clear that Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram will be a cen­tral fo­cus in their dis­cus­sions with Biden. And Her­zog not­ed the “se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges em­a­nat­ing di­rect­ly from Iran and its prox­ies, threat­en­ing Is­rael and its neigh­bours and en­dan­ger­ing our re­gion.”

“We will dis­cuss the need to re­new a strong glob­al coali­tion that will stop the Iran­ian nu­clear pro­gram,” Lapid said

Be­cause of con­cerns about a rise in COVID-19 cas­es, top White House of­fi­cials said Biden would try to lim­it phys­i­cal con­tact dur­ing the trip. At the ar­rival cer­e­mo­ny, Biden most­ly skipped hand­shakes and of­fered Is­raeli of­fi­cials fist bumps. But he made an ex­cep­tion by shar­ing a hearty hand­shake with op­po­si­tion leader Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu. The pres­i­dent al­so put his hand on the shoul­ders of sev­er­al Is­raeli dig­ni­taries.

Biden was hit with tough U.S. eco­nom­ic news as he ar­rived in Is­rael. Surg­ing prices for gas, food and rent pushed U.S. in­fla­tion to a new four-decade high in June of 9.1%, the gov­ern­ment re­port­ed. Ris­ing con­sumer prices are among fac­tors con­tribut­ing to Biden’s low pub­lic ap­proval at home.

The pres­i­dent re­ceived a brief­ing on the coun­try’s “Iron Dome” and new “Iron Beam” mis­sile de­fense sys­tems and vis­it­ed the Yad Vashem memo­r­i­al to Holo­caust vic­tims.

Biden, wear­ing a skull­cap, was in­vit­ed to rekin­dle the eter­nal flame in the memo­r­i­al’s Hall of Re­mem­brance. Two Marines placed a wreath on the stone crypt con­tain­ing the ash­es of Holo­caust vic­tims. Biden bent down to ad­just it and placed his hand over his heart as the Marines salut­ed for a mo­ment of si­lence. Biden lis­tened in si­lence as a can­tor re­cit­ed the re­mem­brance prayer, be­fore Biden greet­ed two Holo­caust sur­vivors, kiss­ing the women on their cheeks.

“My moth­er would say ’God love you, dear,’” Biden told them.

The pres­i­dent is set to meet Thurs­day with Is­raeli of­fi­cials and on Fri­day with Pales­tin­ian lead­ers.

Biden said he will em­pha­size in talks with Is­rael and Pales­tin­ian lead­ers his con­tin­ued sup­port for a two-state so­lu­tion to the Is­raeli-Pales­tin­ian con­flict. But he ac­knowl­edged that it like­ly wouldn’t be fea­si­ble “in the near term.” Biden is spend­ing two days in Jerusalem for talks with Is­raeli lead­ers be­fore meet­ing Pales­tin­ian Pres­i­dent Mah­moud Ab­bas on Fri­day in the West Bank.

Biden added that a two state-so­lu­tion is the best way to en­sure a “fu­ture of equal mea­sure of free­dom, pros­per­i­ty and democ­ra­cy for Is­raelis and Pales­tini­ans alike.” Biden’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er, Jake Sul­li­van, said that Biden would not of­fer any pro­pos­als dur­ing the trip aimed at restart­ing talks.

Biden, in a Wash­ing­ton Post op-ed pub­lished Sat­ur­day, laced in­to Trump for quit­ting the nu­clear deal that Britain, France, Ger­many, Rus­sia, Chi­na and the Eu­ro­pean Union al­so signed on­to. But Biden al­so sug­gest­ed that he’s still hold­ing on­to at least a sliv­er of hope that the Ira­ni­ans will come back in­to com­pli­ance.

“My ad­min­is­tra­tion will con­tin­ue to in­crease diplo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic pres­sure un­til Iran is ready to re­turn to com­pli­ance with the 2015 nu­clear deal, as I re­main pre­pared to do,” he wrote.

Is­raeli of­fi­cials, who briefed re­porters be­fore Biden ar­rived in Is­rael, said the U.S. and Is­rael would is­sue a broad-rang­ing “Jerusalem De­c­la­ra­tion” on Thurs­day that will take a tough stance on Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram.

The de­c­la­ra­tion com­mits both coun­tries to use “all el­e­ments of their na­tion­al pow­er against the Iran­ian nu­clear threat,” ac­cord­ing to an Is­raeli of­fi­cial who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to pre­view the state­ment.

The of­fi­cial said the Is­raelis would stress to Biden their view that Iran has cal­cu­lat­ed “time is on their side” and is loath to give any con­ces­sions. The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion’s last round of in­di­rect ne­go­ti­a­tions with Iran in Do­ha, Qatar, late last month end­ed with­out suc­cess.

The White House has al­so been frus­trat­ed with re­peat­ed Iran-spon­sored at­tacks on U.S. troops based in Iraq, though the ad­min­is­tra­tion says the fre­quen­cy of such at­tacks has dropped pre­cip­i­tous­ly over the last two years. Tehran al­so spon­sored the rebel Houthis in a bloody war with the Saud­is in Yemen. A U.N.-bro­kered cease-fire has been in place for more than four months, a frag­ile peace in a war that be­gan in 2015.

Sul­li­van ear­li­er this week said the ad­min­is­tra­tion be­lieves Rus­sia is turn­ing to Iran to pro­vide it with hun­dreds of un­manned aer­i­al ve­hi­cles, in­clud­ing weapons-ca­pa­ble drones, for use in its on­go­ing war in Ukraine. Sul­li­van said Wednes­day that Ira­ni­ans show­ing a will­ing­ness to as­sist Rus­sia is some­thing that should be of great con­cern to the Is­raelis, Saud­is and oth­er Gulf al­lies that Biden will be meet­ing with this week.

“We think that this is of in­ter­est, to put it mild­ly, to coun­tries we will be vis­it­ing on this trip,” Sul­li­van said.

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Josef Fe­d­er­man and Aamer Mad­hani re­port­ed from Jerusalem. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Chris Megerian, Zeke Miller and Dar­lene Su­perville in Wash­ing­ton con­tributed to this re­port.