When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met President Trump at the White House in February, the two men could not have been in sync any more. The president had designated Yemen's Hooti extremists as terrorist groups. They both talked about stopping Iran from seizing its nuclear bomb. Trump even meditated on banishing Palestinians from Gaza.
“You say something else refuses to say,” Netanyahu gushed out in the oval office, running the camera. “And after the jaw drops, people scratch their heads, and they say, 'You know, he's right.' ”
Two months later, on another White House visit, Netanyahu sat almost quietly next to the president for over 30 minutes, so Trump explained a topic that had nothing to do with Israel.
The meeting highlighted the growing disparity between the two men, increasingly disagreeing about some of the most important security issues facing Israel in April.
As Trump headed to the Middle East this week for his first major foreign trip, the president has now rejected Netanyahu's desire for joint military action to rob Tehran's nuclear capabilities. Instead, Trump began talking to Iran and left Netanyahu to warn him that “bad trading is worse than no trading.”
Over the past week, Trump announced an agreement with Yemeni Iran-backed Hooty militia and halted US airstrikes against extremists who agreed to stop attacks on American ships in the Red Sea. News from Trump, which Israeli officials said was a surprise to Netanyahu, came days after Hooty missiles hit Israel's major airports in Tel Aviv, urging Israel's response.
In a video posted to X, Netanyahu responded to Trump's announcement by saying: “Israel protects itself. Others, our American friends, otherwise, we protect ourselves.”
“The United States does not need to obtain permission from Israel,” US Israeli ambassador Mike Huckabee said in an Israeli television interview on Friday.
And there's even some evidence of inequality in Gaza. Trump's envoys are primarily in support of the prime minister's acts of conflict and are still trying to get a contract to stop the war, despite having not provided any public criticism of Israel's bombing and fuel, fuel and drug blockade since the ceasefire collapsed two months ago.
On Monday, the prime minister announced plans to intensify the war, even as the president's envoy continues to search for new diplomatic paths to end the conflict. But Trump hadn't waved his fingers at Netanyahu, as did President Joseph R. Biden Jr., throughout the first year of the war in Gaza that began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Well, this moment is testing the relationship between the two men. Both are politically divided, violently combative, and have different characters. What is at stake is the short-term and long-term security of regions that have been wrapped for a long time by the war. Analysts in the Middle East and the US say that changing the arc of history there depends on how Trump and Netanyahu bridge differences in a period of major geopolitical change.
“Trump is 'what you see' and rarely hides things. His default is to say what he thinks,” said Eli Groener, who has been the director of the prime minister's office for over three years. “Netanyahu's default is to bring things very close to my heart.”
Over the years, Trump and Netanyahu have repeatedly flattened each other by publicly citing their warm and close relationships as evidence of their political abilities. Those close to the two leaders say they have spirits in some way, in several ways, respecting one another due to the political and personal attacks they have endured in their careers.
Trump accused his government, judges and liberals of conspiring against him. Netanyahu denounced his country's courts for blocking necessary policies, saying his political rival coordinated his trial on charges of fraud, violation of trust and acceptance of bribery.
“Both DNA is very similar,” said Mike Evans, an evangelical Christian who founded a friend of the Zion Museum in Israel and is a supporter of both the president and prime minister. “Both have experienced similar experiences: Vivi with the deep Israeli state, and Donald Trump.”
John Bolton, a national security adviser at the White House from 2018 to 2019, said Trump always considers his relationship with Netanyahu to be critical of his own political support, especially among evangelical voters.
“They saw it in the political advantage of being both friendly,” he said of the two leaders. “That was certainly Trump's calculation.”
However, behind closed doors there are differences of opinion and some conflicts that are affecting the situation we are now facing.
Trump has long been anger at Netanyahu's decision to celebrate his 2020 election victory. The president mistakenly claimed that the prime minister was the first world leader to do so. At the end of 2021, Trump used the expression, reminiscing about Snub in an interview with the book's author.
Netanyahu personally expressed his frustration with some of Trump's policies, particularly about the president's desire to reach a deal with Iran. A right-wing newspaper, which normally lined up with the prime minister, wrote this month that Netanyahu thought Trump was “saying all the right things” but would not provide.
When it comes to Iran, Netanyahu and Trump may be operating on a variety of timelines. The president appears willing to tackle a deal that could limit Tehran's ability to enrich uranium and slow his progress towards bombs. Netanyahu wants to move Iranian militarily before it's too late to stop progress.
“Netanyahu thinks the timeline is fairly short to make a decision,” said Bolton, an advocate for taking military action. In an interview with Time Magazine in April, Trump said he opposed Netanyahu's proposal to launch a joint attack to regain Iran's nuclear program.
“I didn't stop them, but I didn't feel comfortable for them because I think we can do a deal without attack,” Trump said in an interview.
The White House said Trump has no plans to visit Israel this week on a trip to the region, but Huckabee said the president will visit the country by the end of the year. This is a change from the president's first term when his first foreign trip included Israel along with stops in Saudi Arabia and parts of Europe.
It remains unclear how Trump will face the war in Gaza while he is in the Middle East.
Trump vowed to end the Israeli-Hamas war, end the suffering of the Palestinians and attacked hostages seized by extremist groups on October 7, 2023. (Those who are close to him always have his heart in mind are expected to win the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts. A spokesman for Trump said the award is illegal until Trump is praised until the “ultimate peace president” celebrates his achievements.)
More than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. The Gaza Ministry of Health does not distinguish between civilians and combatants' deaths. Approximately 130 hostages have been released, and Israeli forces have recovered at least 40 bodies. According to the Israeli government, up to 24 hostages are thought to be still alive.
Some families of Israeli and American hostages still have some American families still in the process of holding Gaza, according to people familiar with diplomatic lobbying.
In recent weeks, Trump appears to have been less interested in trying to resolve the conflict after boasting about his grand vision of creating the “Gaza Riviera” in February after all Palestinians have been moved to other countries.
When Netanyahu visited the White House in April, several Israeli figured the scene as embarrassing to the prime minister.
Knowing that Netanyahu was a young man, Evans said the prime minister would not be merciless if Trump pushed him to end the war before Israeli forces destroy Hamas and return all the hostages.
“Does Netanyahu believe that Hamas will take all hostages if he withdraws from Gaza?” Evans said. “I don't think he believes that for a moment.”
