Five months after gaining a new government, Israel is hoping to shore up its vital alliance with the U.S. and to court Democrats who are increasingly critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians and rarely questioned American aid for the country.

We think there is a need to hit the reset button, Idan Roll, Israels deputy foreign minister, told HuffPost in an interview last week.

Roll visited Washington as the latest representative of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett s administration. Bennett and his allies took over from Benjamin Netanyahu , who had enacted an aggressive far-right agenda while aligning himself with Republicans in the U.S., led by former President Donald Trump, and slamming former President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats .

Netanyahus successors say their government is more in line with most American policymakers and the American public. They hope that by making that case, they can avoid spats between the U.S. and Israel over issues like Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank the territory where Palestinians hope to establish a future state or Israels hawkish approach to Iran.

As a liberal member of this government, Im very confident that we are making amazing progress in a lot of different fields... that the progressives will appreciate, Roll said. Its just a matter of doing a better job of conveying that.

He pointed to the Bennett governments ending of a restriction on blood donations by gay men, saying that allowed him to give blood earlier this month, and its appointment of a record number of women and Israeli Arabs to government posts.

And Roll argued that the new administration was clearly less discriminatory than Netanyahus, noting that it has earmarked billions of dollars for investment in Arab areas, granted more Israeli work permits to Palestinians and allowed Palestinians to build hundreds of new housing units in the West Bank for the first time since 2007.

But Bennetts policy on building permits shows that Israel will likely continue to frustrate Palestinians and human rights watchdogs despite his teams conciliatory rhetoric.

The policy links new Palestinian construction to more than 3,000 new housing units in Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law and are opposed by many Democrats, including President Joe Biden. Boosting settlements makes it harder for Israel to ever relinquish control of the region and accept the establishment of a Palestinian state, critics say, while hurting the millions of Palestinians who live in the West Bank.

When it comes to the occupation, the record of the new government so far has mostly been a dismal extension of the Netanyahu years, Debra Shushan of the influential Jewish American group J Street wrote this week. She noted that Israeli settlers who often receive government protection are becoming more violent toward Palestinians, according to United Nations experts, and Israeli forces that control the West Bank are continuing to demolish Palestinian homes.

Roll, defending the settlements as a matter of natural growth on both sides, suggested that his government sees a broad resolution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as far off: Bennett would not accept a Palestinian state, while many of his coalition partners like Rolls party see that as the best hope.

The conditions for a two-state solution are currently not ripe on either side, the minister said. But he highlighted that the idea of annexation absorbing the West Bank into Israel is now off the table.

The tense status quo is often bloody: In the latest flare-up between the two sides, earlier this year at least 280 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed .

Additionally, the feud drives broader instability across the Middle East as extremists cite the Palestinian plight to incite hatred and violence while embroiling the U.S. in the conflict and disputes over rights abuses. In addition to the $3.8 billion Israel receives annually in American military aid, the country recently requested $1 billion to resupply its missile defense system. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a skeptic of foreign entanglements, has halted that request, but it could cause a high-profile fight in Congress in the coming months.