Analysis: A look at Netanyahu’s White House visit

LONDON: Commentators from the US to Israel have speculated whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit this week to the White House revealed cracks in the relationship between an American president looking for an exit ramp from the Iran conflict and an Israeli prime minister hoping to cling to office by keeping it going.

Contrary to US President Donald Trump’s usual “ringmaster” approach to Oval Office diplomacy, his meeting with Netanyahu on Tuesday, on the five-month anniversary of the start of the US-Israel war with Iran, was held behind closed doors.

Afterward, Trump had nothing specific to say about the meeting, Netanyahu’s eighth with him since the start of his second term, posting on social media only that it was “very good” and that “many important subjects were discussed.”

Netanyahu’s comments were equally generic. He had had “an excellent meeting with President Trump … a conversation of full partnership, of mutual support, with an understanding of the shared goal to ensure that Iran will not have nuclear weapons, and also other goals.”

Back home, the Israeli media had a different take. Haaretz summed up the meeting in four words: “Trump’s irritation, Netanyahu’s desperation.”

However, the lackluster response, as reported by analysts and media, should not be misconstrued as “degradation of relationship,” former US intelligence officer Norman Roule told Arab News.

“Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visits generally include a ceremonial reaffirmation of the alliance, and that was absent from this trip,” he said. “But that should not be interpreted as any degradation of the relationship.”

The meeting, he added, “would also have provided an opportunity to discuss the challenge of Hezbollah in Lebanon and how to make further progress to resolve the long-standing Israeli-Lebanon crisis.

“The US administration has made good progress on this issue, bringing Israel and Lebanon to direct talks, arranging the first withdrawals of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and assurances from Beirut that it will disarm Hezbollah.

“The US has also prevented Iran from becoming a part of the Lebanese talks, and Beirut has formally asked Iran to stay out of its affairs. All of this is positive, but the issue in this meeting was likely how to build on this progress.”

Haaretz, however, argued that the visit reflected a more strained dynamic. Trump, it said, “was not eager to see Netanyahu,” and had reluctantly agreed to do so “only after Netanyahu decided to attend the funeral of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.”

Graham, who died suddenly on July 11, was one of Israel’s strongest advocates in Washington.

The visit, in Haaretz’s view, “was critical for Netanyahu for both strategic (his hope of influencing moves in Iran) and for campaign purposes (by emphasizing his personal relationship with Trump).”

Ahead of the meeting, Trump had reacted irritably to a report in the New York Post that Netanyahu was preparing to hand him an Israeli intelligence briefing on Pickaxe Mountain, an underground Iranian nuclear facility.

“I don’t need Bibi to tell me that,” Trump told Fox News. “Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.”

Netanyahu’s team scrambled to make amends. An Israeli official anonymously told AP that during the meeting “Netanyahu made it clear to Trump and his Cabinet that if Iran were to attack Israel, they would respond, but that beyond that, they would trust the judgment of the president regarding next steps.”

Haaretz — no friend of Netanyahu’s government — concluded that “it seems that the US president has no intention of taking orders from someone who got him embroiled in a prolonged entanglement in the Gulf.”

A little over five hours after Netanyahu left the White House, US Central Command reported that “Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on US forces based in the Middle East.”

The target was a US base in Jordan. “All Iranian missiles were successfully intercepted,” CENTCOM said, adding: “US forces remain vigilant and at a high state of readiness.”

“The optics of the strikes coinciding with Netanyahu’s visit are unmistakable, and they could be read as a sign of Tehran’s coercive signalling,” said Burcu Ozcelik, senior research fellow on the Middle East, North Africa and Turkiye at the London-based Royal United Services Institute.