Why is Trump hosting Netanyahu for a third time in six months?

Middle East Eye

a day ago

No other world leader has visited this White House as often as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump will host Netanyahu in Washington for the third time in six months, cementing and showcasing a personal relationship that has, in certain ways, not always translated into policy.
Trump's unpredictable decision-making under the "America First" banner has largely meant standing by Israel as the core US strategic asset in the region, and cracking down on domestic pro-Palestine sentiment.
But he has also been unusually transparent for an American president about his frustrations with Netanyahu's behaviour, most recently and in particular when Trump brought Israel and Iran into a ceasefire agreement after what he coined the "12-day war" last month.
"ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS," Trump wrote on his TruthSocial account after he declared the truce would go into effect. "BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!"
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He later told reporters, on camera, that Israel and Iran "don't know what the fuck they're doing".
"The bromance has been restored with the full knowledge - I think Netanyahu understands this - that if, in fact, he imposes himself between the president and something the president really, really wants, that pressure will be forthcoming," Aaron David Miller, a former US State Department advisor on Middle East policy, told Middle East Eye. Miller is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Despite the moodiness with which Trump can sometimes conduct foreign policy, he's allowed Netanyahu "to produce what no Israeli prime minister has ever produced, and that is an American strike against Iran's nuclear sites," Miller said.
This is despite the president's sidelining of Israel as he pursued negotiations with three of its major foes in the region: Hamas, the Houthis and Iran, all of whom this administration has engaged in unprecedented direct diplomacy.
'At what point does Hamas get guarantees that at the end of the road, the war will come to an end'
- Aaron David Miller, former US State Department advisor
Trump's first official foreign trip in May was to the Middle East, and it did not involve a stop in Israel - also unusual given the country is at war on multiple fronts, and some 70 percent of all its weaponry comes from the US.
The president "has essentially blown through one of the two major political laws of gravity that have governed the US-Israeli relationship," Miller told MEE. "In this case, he's blown through 'no daylight' and 'we need to coordinate everything with Israelis'. The second is 'sustained and serious pressure' on an Israeli government. We've never really seen this."
While the Biden administration publicly maintained it was keeping up some level of sustained pressure on the Israelis throughout the first year of the war on Gaza, the former US ambassador to Israel told The Times of Israel, "fundamentally, nothing that we ever said was, 'Just stop the war'".
Trump's special envoy to the region, Steve Witkoff, demanded that Netanyahu agree to a ceasefire with Hamas beginning on 19 January 2025 - one day before Trump's inauguration. It earned the president strong praise in the anti-war contingent of conservatives and among Arab Americans who supported his anti-war campaign platform.
In what seemed to be a one-time gesture to a personal friend, Netanyahu complied with Witkoff's demands. But by 1 March, Israel resumed its air strikes on Gaza and has since been killing some 100 Palestinians a day in the enclave - a figure similar to the earliest and most devastating days of the war.
In addition to Iran, an emboldened Netanyahu has also carried out strikes in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen - all since Trump came into office.
Gaza announcement?
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters there may be "a deal next week" for a ceasefire in Gaza, prompting speculation about a joint announcement from the White House upon Netanyahu's arrival.
But "Hamas is another party to this. So this is not something that can just be announced," Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, told MEE.
"It's not even Trump's style... He's going to announce via TruthSocial the minute he has the opportunity to."
Trump said that Qatar and Egypt "have worked very hard to help bring peace" and "will deliver this final proposal", which would last 60 days.
But Israeli media reports suggest the talks remain fraught. Serious challenges persist behind the scenes, especially over what will happen after the truce.
Israel is reportedly seeking written assurances from Trump that it will be allowed to resume military operations in Gaza if its demands are not met.
Citing a "member of the political echelon" - a phrase often used to signal deliberate leaks by Netanyahu - Israel's Channel 14 reported on Wednesday that the current proposal includes a side letter from Trump.
The document would give Israel the green light to "renew the fire if our demands with regards to the disarmament of Hamas and the exile of its leaders are not met". Israel would be able to interpret, define and make a judgment call on these terms.
Secret Trump letter would let Israel resume war despite ceasefire: Report Read More »
There are major issues that are outstanding for Hamas, and the negotiations are not likely to wrap up by the time Netanyahu comes to Washington, Miller explained.
"One is the number of Palestinian prisoners that are going to be [released as] the asymmetrical number" in exchange for potentially 10 of 20 living Israeli captives in Gaza.
Another is guarantees on unimpeded and safe inflows of humanitarian aid.
"The main conceptual issue is, at what point does Hamas get guarantees that at the end of the road, the war will come to an end, and the Israeli forces will either redeploy to a buffer zone - which I think is what Hamas expects - but from strategic points that the Israelis now occupy, which they may or may not want to do," Miller told MEE.
That issue was never even resolved as part of the January ceasefire that Israel broke after six weeks.
For Netanyahu, the "total victory" is to oust senior Hamas leadership from the Strip, "presumably to three, four different Arab countries willing to take them", Miller said.
He is also insistent on the disarmament of Hamas, which Hamas has made clear it will not agree to as long as the Israeli occupation persists and there is no Palestinian state.
Ultimately, any ceasefire comes down to American political will to force Israel's hand, Rahman explained.
The January ceasefire "wasn't sustainable because the Israelis were unwilling [to stop the war], and then the Americans were unwilling to force the Israelis to abide by it," he said.
"Could Trump get there? I think it's well within his power to do that."
Normalisation
Last month, Netanyahu floated the opening of new diplomatic channels with Arab neighbours as part of a larger Gaza ceasefire deal but did not specify which ones.
Both he and Trump still have their eyes on the main prize: bringing Saudi Arabia on board the Abraham Accords.
But the kingdom may not be as keen on the notion as Trump thinks, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing Israel's attacks on Iran and its "destablising" effect on the region.
There's also the matter of Syria and its new government under Ahmed al-Sharaa, which has been cosying up to Gulf states as well as western powers in order to rebuild a devastated country after 14 years of civil war.
"There may be an announcement on further contacts between the Israelis [and Syrians] on coordination, diffusing tension, some sort of security understanding," Miller said.
And having spent 20 years advising both Republican and Democrat presidents, "it is stunning to me that the issue of direct contact... is already underway with a government in Syria, which was formerly [linked to] al-Qaeda. It's terrific. It's extraordinary."
But normalisation itself at this stage is unrealistic, Rahman argued.
"I don't find even the prospect... credible at all," he told MEE.
"I think they're going to try to - and understandably - come up with some kind of military agreement or detente situation", as former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad maintained for decades with Israel.
And while there was momentum for an Israeli-Saudi diplomatic pathway prior to 7 October 2023 - something the Hamas-led attacks were intended to derail - "I was one of the few voices out there pushing back on the whole narrative that this was an imminent normalisation agreement," Rahman said.
"I was in a lot of those rooms in DC discussing this kind of thing, and it was a jigsaw puzzle, and it didn't look like it was going to align."
Trump's weightiest bilateral meetings in the Oval Office thus far have almost always come with surprises, especially as the president enjoys bringing the press into the room for a lengthy, spontaneous press conference.
Monday's White House photo-op, however, "isn't going to change anybody's mind" in the US or in Israel, Miller told MEE.
"It does figure prominently in Netanyahu's mind, and should he mismanage the relationship, it would have a cost."