Trump flouts political risk to host Netanyahu’s seventh White House visit 

Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump is set to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for the seventh time during his second term, flouting the political risk of holding a high-profile meeting with the increasingly unpopular leader amid the US-Israel war with Iran.

The face-to-face on Tuesday will be the first time the two men have met since they jointly launched the war on February 28, a turn that has piqued the already growing wariness of Israel among the US public, and increasingly, within some segments of Trump’s own Republican Party.

The meeting was announced late last week, with Netanyahu already planning to travel to Washington, DC, for the funeral of US Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the staunchest supporters in Congress of Israel’s interests.

“There hasn’t been a Netanyahu visit since the war began, probably because the war so quickly devolved into a disaster that it just becomes bad optics to have Netanyahu come here,” Andrew Day, senior editor at The American Conservative, told Al Jazeera.

A slate of recent polls has shown Republican disapproval of US policy towards Israel growing, if still markedly less than among Democrats. Notably, a Politico poll released last week showed just a third of self-identified Make America Great Again (MAGA) voters, typically the most unquestioning of Trump’s base, felt the economic costs of the war with Iran were worth it.

Couple that with the widespread perception that Israel pulled the US into the war with Iran, Day said, and the meeting with Netanyahu could prove politically costly as Republicans stare down the midterm elections just over three months away.

“I don’t think Trump personally perceives the risks, although the risk definitely exists,” Day said.

New push for diplomacy

The timing of Tuesday’s meeting is particularly notable, with Trump signalling on Monday that Washington was pursuing a new diplomatic overture with Iran.

That came after the dissolution of the June 17 memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran, which had agreed to halt fighting on all fronts, leading to 13 consecutive days of escalation. The fighting has since been paused for three days.

Netanyahu’s government had vehemently opposed the MoU, arguing that it strengthened Tehran’s hand while yielding few concessions.

Israel has continued to push for wider regime change and a zero-tolerance policy towards Iran’s nuclear programme, in contrast to the Trump administration’s recent pursuit of off-ramps as it has sought to frame the conflict as a victory.

In June, Israeli operations in Lebanon, which threatened to derail the MoU, prompted a rare rebuke from Trump and US Vice President JD Vance, who has been the most outspoken critic of Israeli policies within the administration.

At the time, Vance warned Israeli government officials against criticising the Trump administration: “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” he said.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump again made reference to the unequal relationship: “Frankly, we’re being very nice to a lot of countries that would not survive without us. And you know who wouldn’t survive without us? Israel.”

To be sure, Trump has regularly touted his continued support for both Netanyahu and Israel, and the rhetoric has not amounted to real policy change.

“Whatever criticisms the administration might have been making publicly or privately about Netanyahu, the policy hasn’t changed,” Matt Duss, the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera.

Instead, he said Tuesday’s invitation to the White House reflects Trump’s enduring connection to the Israeli leader, despite the shifting sands of public opinion. No other world leader has met with Trump as many times as Netanyahu. Beyond the White House visits, the Israeli prime minister also met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in December 2025.

“Given that they’ve been so close, perhaps Trump just feels it would be too big of a story if he didn’t give him a meeting again,” Duss said.

That is not to say that the meeting will be inconsequential, he added. Netanyahu has in the past used such events to make personal appeals to Trump to further his war agenda.

“Netanyahu knows how to influence Trump,” Duss said. “And Trump can be very influenced by the last person he spoke to if that person knows how to speak to him in the right way.”

Netanyahu, for his part, has said Tuesday’s meeting would address several issues, “primarily Iran”.

“Of course, our goal is to protect our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us,” he said.

Netanyahu eyes nearing elections

Compared to Trump, the benefits of the Oval Office are more clear-cut for Netanyahu, according to Michael Omer-Man, the Israel-Palestine director at the DAWN advocacy group.

Any face time with the US president could buoy Netanyahu’s standing ahead of what are expected to be punishing Israeli elections in October. He will be keeping an eye towards his domestic audience, even as he is expected to present a more staid image to the US public.

“Any opportunity he has to be photographed with Trump, the most powerful person in the world, is a personal political benefit to him,” Omer-Man said.

“He wants to emphasise his relationship with Trump, and he’s gonna argue that he’s the only one who knows how to deal with the US and the only one with the relationship with Trump,” he said.

To be sure, there are ways the meeting could backfire, Omer-Man assessed.

Trump could apply pressure related to a US-backed agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which is ostensibly aimed at Israel’s complete withdrawal from Lebanon, but appears to allow for the Israeli military’s near-indefinite occupation.

The US president could further assert pressure on the Trump-backed 20-point “peace plan” in Gaza, which has seen near-daily Israeli violations of the “ceasefire” in the enclave. Ahead of Netanyahu’s trip, the Israeli government approved the entry of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza, although no timeframe was given for a more complete Israeli withdrawal.

The meeting also comes amid a virulent wave of settler violence in the occupied West Bank. Rights groups have long argued that such violence is not the result of rogue incidents, but is part of a direct government strategy.

Condemnation of settler attacks has become a rare, bipartisan cause in the US, including within the Trump administration.

“That could be the wild card here,” Omer-Man said. “As much as Trump has not wanted to antagonise or criticise or intervene in anything that Netanyahu or Israel has done or wanted to do, this is the one issue that has basically crossed all party lines in American politics in recent years.”

“It’s obviously heating up and looking pretty bad at the moment,” he said.