US President Joe Biden congratulated Israeli Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu Nov. 7, some four days after the final election results confirmed the comeback of the former leader, and a week after the elections. Biden could have called sooner, as some foreign leaders did, but he might have remembered how long it took Netanyahu to call him after his own November 2020 defeat of Donald Trump, and decided to wait. They can now be considered even on that score.

The eight-minute call was a typically polite conversation between two well-acquainted veteran statesmen. That was also the tone of the White House statement, which hailed the US-Israel relationship as a “bedrock of shared democratic values.” Netanyahu told Biden he intends to achieve additional historical Israeli agreements with Arab states (a clear hint to Saudi Arabia), a reference to the normalization process he launched with Trump, known as the Abraham Accords.

Despite the cordial tone, Biden must have realized that his interlocutor is rooting with all his might for a Republican victory in the Nov. 8 mid-term elections, at least as fervently as Trump is. The results will determine, to a large extent, Netanyahu’s prospects of maneuvering Biden, as he did adroitly with his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. A Republican sweep of both houses of Congress would make it harder for Biden to browbeat Netanyahu’s emerging ultrareligious and ultranationalist government, the most radical Israel has known.

Netanyahu is closer in his conservative views and personal ties to the Republican Party than to the Democrats, enjoying important bastions of power in the Republican Party. “Netanyahu has a window of opportunity of about one year between the mid-terms and the start of the 2024 presidential campaign,” a Netanyahu associate told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “All Netanyahu needs is to hang on for that year, without significant damage to relations with the US administration. If the Democrats manage to retain their majority, Netanyahu’s task will be tougher, obviously.”