Jerusalem.- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington on Monday to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House, the Israeli leader’s office announced on Friday.
The trip will take place “at the invitation of President Trump,” according to Netanyahu’s office, which has not specified how many days it will last, and will include the Israeli prime minister’s attendance at the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham.
The meeting between Netanyahu and Trump, the first face-to-face between both leaders since February and the start of the war with Iran, comes amid an escalation of hostilities between the United States and Iran, with Israel on alert for the possibility that the front could expand into its territory.
In recent months, the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump has fluctuated from extreme cordiality to even verbal attacks via telephone by the American president, such as the one that came to light at the beginning of June.
So, Trump was trying to secure a memorandum of understanding as a supposed preliminary step toward ending the war with Iran, but Israel’s attacks on southern Lebanon and the capital (Beirut) caused Tehran to refuse to take the final step.
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As revealed by Axios, and subsequently confirmed by Trump himself, during a phone call regarding the Israeli offensive in Lebanon, Trump lost his temper and told Netanyahu, among other phrases: “You’re a fucking madman,” “you’d be in prison if it weren’t for me,” “everyone hates Israel because of this.”
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Relationship with Trump
Netanyahu, who has been under great pressure from the far-right ministers in his government to continue attacking Lebanon and even Iran without needing Trump’s backing, lowered the tension and assured that the relationship with Trump is close and that they continue to share common goals.
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More recently, the U.S. president has once again publicly defended Netanyahu and assured that “he will not be arrested in the United States,” as required by the International Criminal Court arrest warrant hanging over his head, if he travels to New York for the UN General Assembly in September.
These statements came after New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani said he was considering the possibility of arresting Netanyahu if he set foot in the Big Apple, although he later acknowledged that the city’s police were not authorized to carry out such an operation.
In addition, Netanyahu will travel to Washington after the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, concluded his visit to the U.S. capital this Wednesday, where he stated he trusts the United States as the only actor with the real capacity to guarantee the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese soil.
Aoun insisted to his American counterpart on the “urgent need” for a complete withdrawal of Israel from Lebanese territory, so that Lebanon may extend its full sovereignty “solely through its own forces” and advance in the implementation of the joint Tripartite Framework.
This will be one of the points that Trump and Netanyahu will discuss next week.
Israel and Lebanon signed a trilateral framework agreement in Washington on June 26, mediated by the US—although Israel has continued to occupy and attack Lebanon in the weeks since—which establishes a roadmap to move toward a “lasting peace and security” between both countries.
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The agreement provides for the Lebanese Armed Forces to gradually assume responsibility for “full and effective security” in what they have termed pilot zones following the Israeli withdrawal.
