Netanyahu to meet Trump for first time since Iran war

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday for the first time since the start of the Iran war, over which they have publicly disagreed.

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Relations between Netanyahu and Trump have occasionally appeared strained in recent months, but both have sought to tone things down.

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Tuesday’s meeting is expected to be dominated by the war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, as Washington says it wants to give negotiations a chance.

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Israel has not taken part in the latest round of hostilities between the United States and Iran, which flared earlier this month as an April ceasefire collapsed.

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Tuesday’s meeting will be the eighth between the leaders since Trump’s return to office last year, as well as their first in-person talks since the war began.

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“This is a great privilege, but it is also a great responsibility,” Netanyahu said before departing from Israel on Monday.

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“We will discuss all the issues on the agenda, first and foremost Iran. Naturally, our goal is to safeguard our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us,” he added.

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Upon arriving in Washington, Netanyahu attended a private memorial dinner on Monday evening in honour of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, his office said.

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He is also scheduled to attend the memorial service for Graham later on Tuesday.

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Relations between Trump and Netanyahu reached a low point in April during negotiations on the ceasefire with Iran, with Trump unleashing profanity-laced tirades against his Israeli ally.

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Trump later described Netanyahu in an interview as a “very difficult guy”.

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Netanyahu downplayed the exchanges as “tactical disagreements”, saying they were aligned on the goals of the war.

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On Tuesday, the leaders are expected to discuss the implementation of a US-sponsored framework deal signed by Israel and Lebanon last month, whose application on the ground has been challenging.

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The talks are also expected to touch on Gaza, as diplomatic efforts to kickstart the devastated Palestinian territory’s reconstruction are at a standstill.

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Nearly three years after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire, and Israel continues to regularly target people the military says are militants.

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– ‘No break’ in ties –

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For Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the primary aim of the visit is to dispel reports of a cooling in relations between the allies.

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“I think that the main issue… is to show the world, to show Iran, and also even Lebanon and others… that there is no break or any kind of major disagreement between the United States and Israel,” he told AFP.

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“There’s more in agreement between the two leaders than disagreement,” he added.

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For Freeman, any differences between Trump and Netanyahu concern the means — timeline, intensity, immediate objectives of operations — rather than the ends of the war.

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He also suggested that Trump would mainly seek to focus on his two regional priorities, namely Iran and the expansion of the Abraham Accords, rather than on Gaza, which he sees as less of a priority.

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The Abraham Accords are a series of US-brokered normalisation agreements signed during Trump’s first term, under which Israel established formal diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for the first time, followed by Morocco.

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But other observers believe that the talks could address the possible easing of Israel’s military presence in the region, such as in Lebanon, Syria or Gaza.

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Netanyahu’s visit comes months ahead of Israel’s national elections, in which he is seeking another term.

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Recent polls show Netanyahu trailing, with public anger still lingering over his government’s failure to prevent Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.

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AFP

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