JNS
The one major similarity between the two visits: Both granted the opportunity to make Israel’s embattled prime minister even stronger.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump this week in what are slated to be serious talks about changing the face of the Mideast. Netanyahu is no stranger to the White House; in fact, it will be his second visit in seven months.
Yet the differences in circumstances between the two could not be starker.
Blair House vs. Watergate
Netanyahu is staying in the Blair House, typically reserved for visiting world leaders. Upon his entry, the prime minister’s office stated, “The prime minister was welcomed at Blair House, the official and historic guest residence of the White House, by its director, who told him that this was Prime Minister Netanyahu’s 14th visit to Blair House—much more than any other foreign leader in its history since it was built in the 19th century.”
Yet in what was more than a subtle jab at Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, back in July, Netanyahu and his delegation were told to find a hotel in the area. Netanyahu stayed at the famous Watergate Hotel, together with other guests. During his stay, the fire alarm was pulled and a bucketful of maggots was released in a meeting room to make the prime minister feel especially welcome, not to mention worried about security.
A quick invitation
Netanyahu arrived in Washington on Sunday, invited barely two weeks after Trump took office. By contrast, it took Biden three years to extend an invitation for the top leader of a top ally to come to the White House. That invitation was offered on Sept. 20, 2023, in the form of a meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.
Less than three weeks later, Israel found itself at war. Netanyahu did not come to the White House until July 2024 and was only granted the invitation because Netanyahu had accepted an invitation to address to a Joint Session of Congress, offered by U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Lame duck president vs. new world leader
In July, Netanyahu met a lame duck and diminished president, who had announced his withdrawal from the 2024 campaign just days before the meeting.
Netanyahu arrived in the backdrop of an America providing flailing leadership on the world stage and sending conflicting messages about support for Israel on the one hand, alongside pressure on Israel on the other. He came to Washington to demonstrate regional and global leadership on his own, a respected statesman fighting a just war against multiple terror entities and their backer—Iran—that was thrust upon the Jewish state with the Hamas-led terrorist attacks and atrocities on Oct. 7, 2023.
And while Israel did not seek a war, it is a war—like every other one previously launched against the Jewish state—in which the only choice is to win resoundingly.
Congressional address
Netanyahu was simultaneously targeting multiple audiences during his trip.
His address to Congress on July 24 was a masterclass in statesmanship, designed to make Israel’s case amid a bitter war to the Congress members in attendance, the American people, Israel’s allies, Israel’s enemies and Israel’s moderate neighbors.
The speech was an overwhelming success that bolstered Netanyahu’s standing as well as his confidence. He has historically been at his best when articulating the role of lead Israeli diplomat.
An adversarial administration
Netanyahu has also thrived when putting Israel’s interests first and standing up to adversarial American administrations. Former presidents Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden all pressed separately to get Netanyahu removed from office.
Just months ahead of his meeting with Biden came public statements and multiple leaks from the administration expressing contempt for the Israeli leader. Hillary Clinton called Netanyahu “untrustworthy” back in February, and Schumer called for Israel to hold new elections in March. When Netanyahu entered the floor of Congress, Schumer did not shake his hand in front of his Democratic colleagues.
After the successful speech, Netanyahu turned his attention to meetings at the White House. The one between Biden and Netanyahu took place without substantive press statements. A second, separate meeting was scheduled with Vice President Kamala Harris, the newly minted Democratic candidate for the presidency, who had skipped Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. It was the first time that she failed to preside over a joint session while serving as second in command.
‘I told Netanyahu: Get this deal done’
After their one-on-one—and only after Netanyahu had been shuttled away from the White House—Harris offered a terse six-minute press statement.
She expressed her “serious concern about the scale of human suffering in Gaza, including the death of far too many innocent civilians.” Calling what has “happened in Gaza over the last nine months devastating,” Harris pledged that “we cannot look away in the face of these tragedies. We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering, and I will not be silent.”
She then turned attention toward a proposed two-phased ceasefire agreement that required Israeli military withdrawals—first from Gazan population centers and then “from Gaza entirely.”
“I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done,” Harris said.
Harris made no demands in her statement regarding Hamas and did not make clear that Hamas should be removed from power.
Senior Israeli officials expressed their distaste over the format and “tone” of Harris’s remarks, which gave a preview of what Netanyahu would have been likely to expect had she won the presidency.
Aside from those meetings, Netanyahu flew to Mar-a-Lago for a meeting with then-Republican presidential candidate Trump in an effort to renew working relations.
A ‘Phase One’ deal is in place
It is by no means ironic that Netanyahu arrives at his current meeting with Trump in the middle of a “phase one” ceasefire agreement. While Harris asserted back in July that Netanyahu should “get this deal done,” the Biden team had done nothing to pressure Hamas into a hostage release deal.
By contrast, it was not until Trump won the election and threatened that there would be “all hell to pay” if the hostages were not quickly released that a deal was signed.
That doesn’t mean the deal that Trump and his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, pressured both sides to accept is fair—with Israel releasing 1,900 terrorist prisoners in exchange for only 33 of the remaining 98 hostages.
Netanyahu meets Witkoff on Monday to begin the process of negotiating a possible extension to the ceasefire deal, ahead of his working meeting with Trump on Tuesday. Unlike the meeting with Biden, the Trump meeting will be followed by a full press briefing with numerous questions on the table.
A singular audience
And unlike the visit in July, the current visit has a much more limited target audience: Trump and his new administration. If Netanyahu can convince the president of his cause, his plans and his vision for a new, peaceful Middle East, the message quickly will be sure to resonate across the region and the world.
Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet Pete Hegseth, the new U.S. Secretary of Defense, on Wednesday, and with Congress and Senators on Thursday.
Isolationist Republicans
A secondary audience for Netanyahu is the greater American right that put Trump into office. Back in February, it was generally assumed in Israel that the Republican Party represented the staunch pro-Israel camp. And while there are many moderate Democrats that have long supported Israel, the growing progressive flank of the party—led by the likes of Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have all turned against America’s alliance with the Jewish state.
By contrast, just months later, a similar trend is developing within the GOP. The more libertarian, isolationist flank of the party is similarly turning its back on Israel, falsely blaming the Jewish state for America’s wars in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq.
What is lost on this right flank of the party is that a strong Israel in the Middle East keeps American interests safer and reduces the likelihood that American troops will ever need to set boots on the ground in the region.
Still, the hope is that Republicans across the board will see Netanyahu standing side by side with Trump and watch the president express his firm support for Israel’s cause.
Winning ‘big’
Back in July, Netanyahu had to make the case to all parties that its cause was just and Israel would keep fighting. Months later, Israel’s position is radically different.
After stunning assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah’s top leadership—notably, after the “grim beeper” episode targeting thousands of Hezbollah operatives—plus the complete dismantling of the Syrian military, and stunning long-range attacks in Yemen and Iran, Israel is not only fighting but winning big.
And with a friendly administration in office, Israel no longer needs to worry about the withholding of key weapons it is contractually obligated to receive, or about the possibilities of anti-Israel resolutions passing at the U.N. Security Council.
Now, Netanyahu can work with Trump to put a strategy into place whereby Israel not only wins the current rounds of fighting but does so in a conclusive manner that changes the trajectory of the Middle East for decades.
Misconceptions turned realizations
The Biden administration didn’t believe that Hamas could be removed from power or that Palestinians in Gaza could leave the Strip. Netanyahu will seek to convince Trump that Hamas can be removed permanently and that Gazans can be resettled in Egypt, Jordan or elsewhere.
The Biden administration didn’t believe that Israel should begin the fight with Hezbollah. Netanyahu will work to convince Trump that Israel should retain a presence in Southern Lebanon to ensure that a severely diminished Hezbollah will never again amass capabilities to threaten residents in Israel’s north.
The Biden administration did all it could to prevent Israel from entering into direct conflict with Iran, even though Iranian proxies from multiple countries have launched concurrent war on Israel. More than that, Iran itself fired hundreds of ballistic and cruise missiles at Israel from within its own territory—twice in 2024.
A generational opportunity
Netanyahu now has the opportunity to convince Trump that the war cannot only pause but end entirely with the complete neutralization of Iran’s nuclear program. He also seeks pressure to help the Iranian people take back their country from the grips of the repressive and war-hungry mullahs who threw the entire Middle East into chaos.
Furthermore, Netanyahu and Trump have the opportunity to end the war in Israel’s favor and usher in a new era of peace by expanding the normalization process with the 2020 Abraham Accords. It’s a process the Biden administration paid lip service to but was never in a position to deliver; it seemed reluctant to further it at all.
What a difference seven months make.
Alex Traiman, CEO and Jerusalem bureau chief of Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), is covering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C.
