The scheduling of presidential calls to foreign countries is a bit of a diplomatic dance.

Obama’s early call to the PLO leader laid out his agenda early on. Biden has a longstanding hostility to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Israeli leader tried to head it off by congratulating Biden, more for domestic purposes than American ones, to show Israelis he isn’t the one responsible for the crisis in relations, but the crisis is still inevitable. And the Biden administration is making a point of not calling Netanyahu. But neither has he called the PLO’s Abbas.

And that’s a good thing.

Former US president Barack Obama called Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas before then-prime minister Ehud Olmert on his first day in office, indicating his emphasis on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu was the third leader former president Donald Trump called, which reflected their close relationship.

According to former ambassador to the US Michael Oren, “They’ll speak eventually, and [Netanyahu] will eventually go to Washington.” But regarding Biden’s phone calls, he said: “There’s a message in that order.”

Netanyahu congratulated Biden for winning the presidency about 12 hours after most of the other leaders with whom the president spoke, he did not actually say in his message that Biden was president-elect, and he followed it with praise for Trump, Oren said.

“There’s a price to pay for that,” he said.

Oren is a bit of a lefty and a political rival of Netanyahu. And he’s predictably trying to blame him for the situation.

There is a message to the order, but Netanyahu’s message to Biden isn’t the issue. The overall message here is that for Biden, Israel won’t be a priority. It’s going to be left to nat sec officials.

And that’s a good thing.

Biden is going to crawl back into the Iran Deal. He doesn’t want to hear from Netanyahu about it. But neither is telling Netanyahu that he’s launching another peace process push a priority. That will probably still happen, but for the moment the Abraham Accords and President Trump’s moves have altered the chessboard enough that he’s not tackling Israel out of the gate. And while Israel no longer has an ally in D.C., it’s not a priority foe either.

And that’s a small win.