Trump and Netanyahu meet for the first time since launching the Iran war

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu and Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump met at the White House on Tues­day for the first time since they launched a joint war against Iran, of­fer­ing a chance for Ne­tanyahu to smooth out strains in their re­la­tion­ship.

The closed-door meet­ing last­ed near­ly an hour and a half and was “pos­i­tive and pro­duc­tive,” ac­cord­ing to White House press sec­re­tary Karo­line Leav­itt. The White House and prime min­is­ter’s of­fice did not im­me­di­ate­ly of­fer more de­tails.

It comes as both face grow­ing pres­sures at home. Ne­tanyahu is up for re-elec­tion and is em­bat­tled in part be­cause of his de­te­ri­o­rat­ing re­la­tion­ship with Trump. Trump is un­der pres­sure to end an un­pop­u­lar war that has wreaked eco­nom­ic hav­oc and dri­ven prices high­er ahead of midterm elec­tions this No­vem­ber.

Trump re­vealed some ten­sion with Ne­tanyahu ahead of their meet­ing, com­plain­ing about re­ports that the Is­raeli leader plans to dis­cuss in­tel­li­gence on Iran­ian ac­tiv­i­ties at Pick­axe Moun­tain, a po­ten­tial nu­clear site that the U.S. pres­i­dent has threat­ened re­peat­ed­ly to bomb.

“I know ex­act­ly what’s go­ing on at Pick­axe,” Trump told “Fox & Friends.” He in­sist­ed that what­ev­er Iran is do­ing is “not a big prob­lem” and that “Bibi’s telling me that be­cause he wants me to stay in­volved.”

“Why do you have to an­nounce to the world?” Trump added, flash­ing his frus­tra­tions with his al­ly.

Near the White House where the pub­lic was able to gath­er near fenc­ing, a small group of pro­test­ers chant­ed, “Ne­tanyahu, you’re a tyrant” and “Bibi, you’re not wel­come here,” ref­er­enc­ing the prime min­is­ter’s nick­name.

The two lead­ers al­so planned to dis­cuss the frame­work agree­ment the U.S. and Is­rael signed with Lebanon over the Is­rael-Hezbol­lah war and the ex­pan­sion of the Abra­ham Ac­cords, ac­cord­ing to a White House of­fi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to pre­view the meet­ing.

“We have a lit­tle dif­fer­ence,” Trump said Mon­day when asked by re­porters if he and Ne­tanyahu were on the same page on Iran. “But pret­ty close, yeah.”

Trump and Ne­tanyahu’s re­la­tion­ship has ebbed be­fore

Trump has had a hot-and-cold his­to­ry with Ne­tanyahu over the years, but up­on his re­turn to the White House last year, their al­liance seemed stronger than ever. When they start­ed the war to­geth­er in Feb­ru­ary, it was with a unit­ed front, tout­ing their re­spec­tive mil­i­taries as act­ing in lock­step to take out Iran’s lead­er­ship and pave the way for a gov­ern­ment more friend­ly to the West.

But as Iran fought back — send­ing drones and mis­siles slam­ming in­to U.S. bases and high-ris­es in cities in the Gulf and chok­ing off the Strait of Hor­muz — Trump came un­der im­mense pres­sure both at home and by al­lies in the re­gion to end the con­flict.

Since then, Ne­tanyahu, who want­ed to con­tin­ue the fight­ing in Iran and against its al­ly, Hezbol­lah, in Lebanon, has been side­lined as Trump sought a deal with Tehran. His vis­it to the White House this week comes as the dis­agree­ments with Trump and Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance have burst in­to the open over the war in Iran and more.

“The Amer­i­cans are mak­ing it clear to the Is­raelis they are the ones who are run­ning the war,” Is­raeli jour­nal­ist and po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Amit Se­gal wrote Mon­day in the dai­ly news­pa­per, Is­rael Hay­om. “It is clear to every­one that Is­rael has been put in the back seat.”

Ne­tanyahu keep­ing fo­cus on Iran’s nu­clear pro­gram

With U.S.-Iran ten­sions flar­ing again in re­cent weeks, Ne­tanyahu planned to share with Trump Is­raeli in­tel­li­gence on Tehran’s nu­clear pro­gram, ac­cord­ing to a per­son fa­mil­iar with Ne­tanyahu’s vis­it, who spoke on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not au­tho­rized to speak to the me­dia.

Is­rael’s Unit­ed Na­tions Am­bas­sador Dan­ny Danon told re­porters in New York on Tues­day that Ne­tanyahu wants to hear what Trump would like to see over the com­ing days and weeks.

“I can­not tell you which di­rec­tion it will go. There are dif­fer­ent op­tions,” he said. “We are pre­pared for all sce­nar­ios, and we will dis­cuss it with the pres­i­dent.”

Ne­tanyahu said Sun­day that he hoped to sit down with Trump “to hear what he has in mind” for Iran.

“Be­cause I think, in many ways, it’s his de­ci­sion” on how to move for­ward, Ne­tanyahu told Maria Bar­tiro­mo on Fox News Chan­nel’s “Sun­day Morn­ing Fu­tures.” “If he can do so with­out re­turn­ing to in­tense mil­i­tary fight­ing, that’s fine. Why not?

“But one way or the oth­er, they have to end their nu­clear pro­gram,” he said of Iran.

Steps to al­low oth­er forces in Gaza and in Lebanon

But even as Ne­tanyahu sees an op­por­tu­ni­ty, he al­so needs to per­suade Trump that he won’t play spoil­er to U.S. diplo­mat­ic and re­con­struc­tion ef­forts in Gaza and in Lebanon, where the pres­i­dent has pre­vi­ous­ly com­plained that “too many peo­ple are be­ing killed” by Is­raeli strikes.

Is­rael has tak­en re­cent steps in both places.

In Lebanon, where the Is­raeli mil­i­tary oc­cu­pies much of the south, Is­rael agreed to al­low the Lebanese army to de­ploy to some vil­lages as part of a “pi­lot pro­gram” test­ing their abil­i­ty to se­cure ar­eas where Hezbol­lah once op­er­at­ed. The U.S. State De­part­ment said Mon­day that the next round of talks be­tween Is­rael and Lebanon will take place next week in Rome with a fo­cus on ex­pand­ing the pro­gram.

On Gaza, Is­rael’s se­cu­ri­ty cab­i­net green-lit on Sun­day a mea­sure that would, in the­o­ry, grant en­try to the first mem­bers of an in­ter­na­tion­al sta­bi­liza­tion force out­lined last year in a U.S.-backed cease­fire deal be­tween Is­rael and Hamas.

Few coun­tries have pledged troops for the force, how­ev­er, and Is­rael would ap­prove their en­try in­to Gaza on a case-by-case ba­sis.

The troops — in­clud­ing from Mo­roc­co and Ugan­da — would on­ly be al­lowed to op­er­ate in a small, des­o­late area in Rafah in the south, where the plan is to vet and house some dis­placed Pales­tini­ans.

The Is­raeli mil­i­tary con­tin­ues to car­ry out strikes it says tar­get mil­i­tants but that have al­so killed civil­ians.

Sup­port for Is­rael has erod­ed

Is­rael has lost a sig­nif­i­cant amount of bi­par­ti­san sup­port in the Unit­ed States, par­tic­u­lar­ly over its con­duct in Gaza.

In June, Vance warned Is­raeli of­fi­cials that Trump was their on­ly friend among world lead­ers. Vance is ex­pect­ed to at­tend the meet­ing with Ne­tanyahu, ac­cord­ing to a per­son fa­mil­iar with the plan who was not au­tho­rized to speak pub­licly and spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

An AP-NORC poll pub­lished ear­li­er this month found a dra­mat­ic ero­sion of sup­port among Amer­i­can adults for Is­rael.

“We’ve lost Amer­i­ca. Thank you, Bibi,” wrote Ben Caspit, a po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor for Is­rael’s Maariv news­pa­per. — WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by ERIN CUN­NING­HAM and MICHELLE L. PRICE | As­so­ci­at­ed Press
As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Melanie Lid­man in Tel Aviv, Is­rael; Dar­lene Su­perville and Se­ung Min Kim in Wash­ing­ton; Edith M. Led­er­er at the Unit­ed Na­tions; and Bill Bar­row in At­lanta con­tributed to this re­port. Erin Cun­ning­ham re­port­ed from Jerusalem.