Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived in Washington, DC, and will visit the White House on Tuesday, with the war on Iran topping the agenda.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s visit<\/a> is his first for talks with President Donald Trump since the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran with strikes on Tehran on February 28. It also comes amid increasing Israeli raids and arrests in the occupied West Bank<\/a> and three months before elections in Israel.<\/p>\n Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n He has visited the White House more times under the Trump administration than under any other US president. Political analysts say Netanyahu is seeking Trump\u2019s support for re-election.<\/p>\n What are the two leaders likely to discuss and what happens next in the US-Israel war on Iran?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what we know:<\/p>\n Why are Trump and Netanyahu meeting now?<\/p>\n Netanyahu is primarily in the US to attend the funeral ceremony of Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who died on July 11.<\/p>\n Graham was a close Trump ally in the Senate, both on domestic and international matters, including the war on Iran, as well as a staunch supporter of Israel. His funeral ceremony will take place on Tuesday in Washington, DC, beginning at 2pm (19:00 GMT).<\/p>\n Before attending Graham\u2019s memorial, Netanyahu is also expected to meet Trump at 11am (15:00 GMT) in Washington, DC, where protesters have lined the streets in anticipation of his visit.<\/p>\n He is scheduled to fly back to Israel on Wednesday.<\/p>\n What are Trump and Netanyahu likely to discuss?<\/p>\n A White House official told the Reuters news agency that the two leaders were likely to discuss the war on Iran as well as Israeli strikes and occupation of Lebanon, whose president Trump hosted last week. Israel says it is targeting strongholds of the Iran-backed group Hezbollah, which began firing rockets into its north shortly after the war on Iran began. However, Iran says it will not agree to a peace deal unless Israeli forces withdraw from Lebanon.<\/p>\n Reporting from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera\u2019s Alan Fisher said many people in Israel believe the US should not make a deal with Iran and should instead resume the war. He said some in the US support this view.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, Trump has expressed his frustration with Netanyahu and has said several times that he feels the Israeli leader is not seeing the big picture. And sometimes you\u2019re not sure whether both men are on the same page or whether they are diametrically opposed to one another. So it will be interesting to see if we get any readout from either side after that meeting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fisher, however, added that the outcome of the meeting between Trump and Netanyahu is currently not expected to be made public.<\/p>\n The White House official also told Reuters that the two leaders would also discuss the Abraham Accords, the series of agreements between Israel and Arab and other nations which Trump began brokering during his first term as US president to normalise diplomatic relations. So far, only the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan and Kazakhstan have agreed to sign.<\/p>\n Netanyahu\u2019s visit to Washington, DC comes amid intensifying pogroms and violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities across the occupied West Bank over the weekend following a deadly shootout<\/a> in the town of Tal, in which two Israelis and four Palestinians were killed.<\/p>\n Israeli settlers have been making a push to increase the number of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank since 2022, when Netanyahu formed the most far-right government in the country\u2019s history, including ministers who are leading figures in the settler movement.<\/p>\n Expanding the illegal settlements would help Netanyahu garner the far right\u2019s support in the upcoming elections, political observers say.<\/p>\n However, in a letter published on Tuesday, about 600 former Israeli officials appealed to Trump, saying he is the only one capable of helping to avoid the \u201ccalamity\u201d of escalating violence in the West Bank and its implications for Israeli, US and regional security.<\/p>\n \u201cUnless arrested swiftly and decisively, escalating violence in the West Bank is poised to ignite the region and carries severe ramifications for both Israeli security and US regional interests,\u201d the letter, written by lobby group Commanders for Israel\u2019s Security (CIS), stated.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is our professional judgment that no one but you, Mr President, can avert this calamity.\u201d<\/p>\n CIS is a movement of more than 550 retired Israeli army colonels and generals, as well as equivalent ranks in the intelligence agency Mossad, the internal security agency Shin Bet, police, the foreign service and other corps.<\/p>\n What do Trump and Netanyahu currently disagree on?<\/p>\n The two leaders once appeared politically inseparable, with Netanyahu describing Trump as the \u201cgreatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House\u201d last October. Trump returned the praise. During a 2025 appearance in Israel, he joked, \u201cHe\u2019s not easy \u2013 not the easiest guy to deal with \u2013 but that\u2019s what makes him great.\u201d<\/p>\n But Israel\u2019s hostilities with Iran have showcased a crack in Netanyahu and Trump\u2019s alignment.<\/p>\n War on Iran<\/p>\n Last month, Trump reportedly called Netanyahu \u201cf****** crazy\u201d during a phone call and accused him of undermining US diplomatic efforts to end the war on Iran by continuing attacks on Lebanon, among other issues. He warned that Israel\u2019s military escalation risked derailing peace talks with Iran.<\/p>\n \u201cHe will have no choice,\u201d Trump told the Financial Times when asked about the likelihood of Netanyahu approving a possible peace agreement with Iran. \u201cI call the shots. I call all the shots. He doesn\u2019t call the shots.\u201d<\/p>\n Political observers say the two leaders are each driven by their own political interests, which are on a collision course. In the US, the war with Iran is deeply unpopular, so Trump needs to reach a deal with Iran to end the war. Netanyahu, on the other hand, could benefit politically at home if it were to continue.<\/p>\n \u2018Regime change\u2019 in Iran<\/p>\n \u201cRegime change\u201d in Iran appears to be a major sticking point between the two leaders.<\/p>\n Alex Vatanka at the Middle East Institute told Al Jazeera that Netanyahu is likely to try and \u201csell the idea of regime change again in Tehran\u201d when he meets Trump at the White House on Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it will go down well with President Trump because he doesn\u2019t want to do that,\u201d Vatanka said. \u201cPolitically, in the US, this war is hugely unpopular, so it remains to be seen what Prime Minister Netanyahu gets out of this meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n He added that previous meetings between Trump and Netanyahu in Washington, DC, have often preceded a flare-up in tensions with Iran, and it remains to be seen whether this one breaks that pattern.<\/p>\n Vatanka said Israelis are still unhappy with the Trump administration about the memorandum of understanding agreed with Tehran, because they \u201chave a different sense of threat perception when it comes to Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n Israeli officials will want Netanyahu to continue to press Trump on Iran\u2019s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s counter to that is there is only so much the US can do militarily unless they decide to go in and occupy Iran, and this is something nobody really takes seriously,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n But in a video statement before departing for Washington, DC, Netanyahu said: \u201cIn these complex times, you need to act with both great determination and great wisdom. We will discuss all the issues \u2060on the agenda, primarily Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, our goal is to protect our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Lebanon<\/p>\n Israel has also refused to withdraw from Lebanon, insisting that it has the right to bomb the country at any time to respond to \u201cthreats\u201d.<\/p>\n According to Axios, in a phone call in early June, Trump told<\/a> Netanyahu: \u201cEverybody hates you now \u2026 everybody hates Israel because of this.\u201d<\/p>\n According to an Israeli official quoted by CNN, Netanyahu told his security cabinet on Sunday that the Trump administration wants Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, Syria and Gaza but he would oppose the idea.<\/p>\n US-Turkiye aircraft deal<\/p>\n Al Jazeera\u2019s Fisher noted that another point of friction between the two leaders is Washington\u2019s sale of F-35 aircraft to Turkiye.<\/p>\n \u201cNetanyahu doesn\u2019t want that to happen. Trump was asked about it in the last few hours, and he said we will sell to whoever he wants. So it could be a very interesting meeting at the White House on Tuesday,\u201d Fisher said.<\/p>\n