WASHINGTON, DC – US President Donald Trump will welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House for the seventh time in his second term, avoiding the political risk of holding a high-profile meeting with an increasingly unpopular leader amid the US-Israel war with Iran.
Tuesday’s meeting will be the first time the two men have met since they jointly launched a war on February 28, adding to already growing wariness about Israel among Americans and among some in Trump’s own Republican Party.
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The meeting was announced late last week, with Netanyahu already planning to travel to Washington, D.C., for the funeral of U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of Israel’s most ardent supporters in parliament.
“There has never been a visit by Prime Minister Netanyahu since the war started. Maybe it’s because the war has escalated so quickly into a catastrophe that it just looks bad for him to come here,” Andrew Day, senior editor at the American Conservative, told Al Jazeera.
Recent polls show that Republican disapproval of U.S. policy toward Israel is increasing, although it is significantly lower than that of Democrats. Remarkably, a Politico poll released last week found that only a third of self-proclaimed “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) voters (typically Trump’s most unquestioned base) felt the economic cost of war with Iran was worth it.
Day said a meeting with Netanyahu could be politically costly as Republicans face midterm elections just over three months away, coupled with the widespread perception that Israel has drawn the United States into a war with Iran.
“There’s certainly a risk, but I don’t think President Trump personally recognizes the risk,” Day said.
A new push for diplomacy
The timing of Tuesday’s meeting was particularly noteworthy, with President Trump suggesting on Monday that the United States was pursuing new diplomatic talks with Iran.
This came after the June 17 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran, which agreed to cease fighting on all fronts, was dissolved, leading to 13 consecutive days of escalation. Since then, fighting has been suspended for three days.
Netanyahu’s government fiercely opposed the memorandum, saying it would strengthen Iran’s hand with few concessions.
Israel continues to push for broader regime change and a zero-tolerance policy toward Iran’s nuclear program, in contrast to the Trump administration’s recent withdrawal efforts to win the conflict.
In June, an Israeli operation in Lebanon that threatened to derail the memorandum drew an unusual rebuke from President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance, who has been the administration’s most outspoken critic of Israel policy.
At the time, Vance warned Israeli officials not to criticize the Trump administration, saying, “If I had been in the Israeli government’s cabinet, I might not have attacked our only remaining strong ally in the entire world.”
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump again addressed the unequal relationship, saying, “We’ve been very good to a lot of countries that, frankly, can’t live without us. And you know who the country we can’t live without? Israel.”
To be sure, Mr. Trump regularly touts his continued support for both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel, and that rhetoric has not translated into real policy changes.
“Regardless of the criticisms the administration has made of Prime Minister Netanyahu in public and private, policy has not changed,” Matt Das, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera.
Rather, he said Tuesday’s invitation to the White House reflects President Trump’s enduring ties to Israeli leaders, despite fluctuations in public opinion. No world leader has met with President Trump as many times as Prime Minister Netanyahu. In addition to the White House visit, the Israeli Prime Minister met with President Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in December 2025.
“Given that the two sides have been very close in the past, maybe President Trump feels it’s too much to talk about if he doesn’t give us another meeting,” Das said.
That doesn’t mean the talks aren’t important, he added. Prime Minister Netanyahu has used such events in the past to make personal appeals to President Trump and promote his war policies.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu knows how to influence President Trump,” Das said. “And President Trump could be very influenced by the last person he spoke to if they knew the right way to speak to him.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday’s meeting would address several issues, including “primarily Iran.”
“Of course, our goal is to keep us safe and to spread a circle of peace around us,” he said.
Prime Minister Netanyahu faces elections
Michael Omerman, director of Israel and Palestine for the advocacy group DAWN, said the benefits of the Oval Office are clearer for Mr. Netanyahu than for Mr. Trump.
A direct meeting with the US president could strengthen Netanyahu’s position ahead of an election expected to have an impact on Israel’s October election. Although he is expected to present a more solid image to the American public, he will turn his attention to a domestic audience.
“The opportunity to be photographed with Mr. Trump, the most powerful man in the world, is of personal political benefit to him,” Ommerman said.
“He seems to want to emphasize his relationship with Trump and will claim that he is the only one who knows how to deal with the United States and that he is the only one who has a relationship with Trump.”
It is true that this meeting could backfire, Omerman assessed.
President Trump may apply pressure in connection with the U.S.-backed agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which ostensibly aims for Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon but appears to allow Israeli military occupation almost indefinitely.
The US president may further increase pressure on a 20-point peace plan for the Gaza Strip backed by President Donald Trump. Violations of the ceasefire by Israel are seen on an almost daily basis in the Gaza Strip. Ahead of Netanyahu’s visit, the Israeli government approved the entry of the International Stabilization Force (ISF) into Gaza, but gave no deadline for a more complete Israeli withdrawal.
The meeting also took place during a ferocious wave of settler violence in the occupied West Bank. Human rights groups have long argued that such violence is not the result of corrupt incidents but is part of a direct government strategy.
Condemnation of settler attacks has rarely been a bipartisan cause in the United States, including within the Trump administration.
“That could be the wild card here,” Ommerman said. “President Trump did not want to antagonize, criticize, or intervene in anything that Prime Minister Netanyahu or Israel did or attempted to do, but this is the only issue in American politics in recent years that has been fundamentally bipartisan.”
“Obviously the heat is rising and things seem to be in pretty bad shape at the moment,” he said.
