WASHINGTON (AP) — Clasping his hand warmly, a beaming Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for their first face-to-face meeting in nearly four years on Friday, as the two sought to mend an important political alliance that had broken down after Netanyahu congratulated Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory over Trump.
Trump was waiting on the stone steps outside his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, to greet the Israeli leader, who is on the fifth day of a weeklong U.S. visit aimed at bolstering support for Israel’s 9-month-old war against Hamas in Gaza and boosting Netanyahu’s own fallen popularity at home.
In front of reporters before the two sat down for talks in a muraled room at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who was taken captive by Hamas-led militants in the first hours of the war. “We’ll get it taken care of,” Trump assured him.
In a statement after the two men began discussions, Trump aides said he pledged to “make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East” and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.
Netanyahu’s Florida trip follows a fiery address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday that defended his far-right government’s conduct of the war and condemned American protesters galvanized by the killing of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the conflict. In talks Thursday in Washington, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival for the presidency, pressed Netanyahu to work with them to wrap up negotiations for a cease-fire and release of hostages.
Both Trump and Netanyahu have strong political interests in getting past their differences. As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu’s top wishes from the United States.
For Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, the meeting could cast him as an ally and statesman, as well as sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.
D ivisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza have opened cracks in years of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.
For Netanyahu, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that Trump may once again become president of the United States, which is Israel’s vital arms supplier and protector.
For both men, Friday’s meeting highlights for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and can again. But Trump’s public statements urging a rapid end to the war in Gaza could add to tensions.
One political gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.
“Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
For the next six months, that means “mending ties with an irascible, angry president,” Miller said, meaning Trump.
Trump broke off with Netanyahu in early 2021. That was after the Israeli prime minister became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden for his presidential election victory, disregarding Trump’s false claim he had won.
“Bibi could have stayed quiet,” Trump said in an interview with an Israel newspape back then. “He made a terrible mistake.”
Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both men’s political careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.
For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hopes will be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.
In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.
He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as “not prepared” for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.
In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu gave recognition to Biden, who has kept up military and diplomatic support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza despite opposition from within his Democratic Party.
But Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump helped broker historic and thanking him “for all the things he did for Israel.”
Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments — the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem’s status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
“I appreciated that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu’s praise.
He didn’t quiet his criticism, however, of Israel’s conduct of the war, which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.
“I want him to finish up and get it done quickly. You gotta get it done quickly, because they are getting decimated with his publicity,” Trump said in Thursday’s interview.
“Israel is not very good at public relations, I’ll tell you that,” he added.
Trump has repeatedly urged that Israel with U.S. support “finish the job” in Gaza and destroy Hamas, but he hasn’t elaborated on how.
