US president Donald Trump will meet Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House on September 29th, three days after Netanyahu’s scheduled address at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Remarkably, this will be the fourth meeting between the leaders in the White House since Trump’s second term began in January.
Netanyahu said the invitation came during a phone call on Monday, adding that he has held several conversations with Trump since Israel’s September 9th strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar, and all of them were “good”.
The never-ending Gaza war, accompanied by daily television images of death and destruction, has turned Israel into a pariah state, prompting many of its traditional allies to voice criticism and pledge to vote in favour of Palestinian statehood at next week’s UN General Assembly gathering. The proposal by the European Commission to suspend parts of the EU-Israel trade agreement is just the latest example of Israel’s growing isolation.
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However, bucking this global trend is the robust partnership with Washington, by far Israel’s most important ally. The Gaza war could not have been sustained for so long without the backing of Washington, and this week’s ground incursion into Gaza City would not have been ordered without a green light from Trump.
The close ties held firm despite last week’s Israeli attack on Qatar, a major US regional ally, although Trump promised Doha “that such a thing will not happen again on their soil”.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio refused to criticise the Doha strike when questioned on the issue during his visit to Israel this week, instead praising the two countries’ technological and cultural ties. Netanyahu repeated his mantra that Israel has “no better ally”.
Israel launched the controversial operation in Gaza City just hours after Rubio said on Sunday, alongside Netanyahu during a news conference in Jerusalem, that while the US prefers diplomacy, it understands that a “targeted operation” may be unavoidable.
“At the end of the day, no matter what has happened or happens, the objective remains the same, and that is all 48 of those hostages, both living and deceased, need to be home. They need to be returned,” he said. “Hamas needs to cease to exist as an armed element that can threaten the peace and security of the region. And the people of Gaza deserve a better future. But that better future cannot begin until Hamas is eliminated.”
[ Israel’s Doha debacle risks worsening situation of hostages in GazaOpens in new window ]
The comments from Netanyahu were almost identical, in a further indication that for now there is no daylight, at least in public statements, between the two allies.
Trump has made it clear that he wants the Gaza war to end, but he seems to have been persuaded by Netanyahu that incessant military pressure on Hamas is the only way to achieve this. Washington has not set a deadline for the end of the Israeli assault although there are unconfirmed reports that Trump wants the fighting to end by the end of the year at the latest.
Most of the families of the hostages held in Gaza realised long ago that their best hope for ending the war with a ceasefire was via Trump, rather than their own government, who they accuse of abandoning them. Will this month’s White House meeting mark the end of Trump’s blind support for Netanyahu’s never-ending war? The hostage families are praying for such a scenario.
