WASHINGTON – As president, donald trump went far beyond his predecessors in fulfilling the Israeli Prime Minister’s commitment Benjamin Netanyahu main desires of the United States. However, by the time Trump left the White House, relations between the two had broken down after Netanyahu quickly congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory.
On Friday, the two men will meet face to face for the first time in almost four years, to test whether the relationship can be repaired. Both are interested in overcoming their differences.
For Trump, now the Republican presidential candidate, the meeting could see him as an ally and statesman, as well as intensify Republicans’ efforts to present themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.
This is so divisions among Americans U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza opens cracks in what has been decades of strong bipartisan support for Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. aid.
For Netanyahu, who was in the United States to speak to Congress and meet with Biden, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that he could once again be president of the United States, Israel’s main supplier and protector of weapons.
For both men, Friday’s gathering at Mar-a-Lago will highlight to their local audience their portrayal of themselves as strong leaders who have accomplished great things on the world stage, and who can do so again.
One political gamble for Netanyahu is whether he can get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release, and on the long-awaited closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits for the end of the process. Biden administration hoping Trump wins.
“Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career over the last two decades tying himself to the Republican Party,” said Aaron David Miller, a former US diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Over the next six months, that means “repairing ties with an irascible, angry president,” Miller said, referring to Trump.
Trump broke with Netanyahu in early 2021. This came after the Israeli prime minister became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden on his presidential election victory, disregarding Trump’s false claim that he had won.
“Bibi could have stayed quiet,” Trump said in a interview with an Israeli newspaper At that time. “He made a terrible mistake.”
Netanyahu and Trump last met at a signing ceremony at the White House in September 2020, marking the landmark diplomatic achievement of both men’s political careers. It was a deal brokered by the Trump administration in which the UAE and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.
For Israel, it meant that both countries formally recognized it for the first time. It was an important step in what Israel hopes will be an easing of tensions and an expansion of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.
In posts and public statements following his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu repaid him with disloyalty.
He also criticized Netanyahu on other points, accusing him of “not being prepared” for the Hamas attacks on October 7 that started the war in Gaza, for example.
In his high-level address to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu acknowledged Biden, who has maintained military and diplomatic support for Israel’s Gaza offensive despite opposition within his Democratic Party.
But Netanyahu praised Trump, calling the regional agreements Trump helped broker historic and thanking him “for all the things he has done for Israel.”
Netanyahu listed Trump administration actions long sought after by Israeli governments – the US officially declared that Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during the 1967 war; a tougher US policy towards Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with long-standing US policy that Jerusalem’s status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
“I liked that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu’s praise.
He did not ease his criticism, however, of Israel’s conduct of the war, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.
“I want him to finish and do it quickly. You have to do it quickly because they are being decimated with your publicity,” Trump said in Thursday’s interview.
“Israel is not very good at public relations, I tell you that,” he added.
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Associated Press writers Natalie Melzer in Tel Aviv, Israel, Adriana Gomez Licon in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Jill Colvin in New York contributed.
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