{"id":563584,"date":"2026-07-28T13:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/563584\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T13:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T13:47:08","slug":"trump-flouts-political-risk-to-host-netanyahus-seventh-white-house-visit-donald-trump-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/563584\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump flouts political risk to host Netanyahu\u2019s seventh White House visit | Donald Trump News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington, DC \u2013 United States President Donald Trump is set to host<\/a> Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House for the seventh time<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> of Israel among the US public, and increasingly, within some segments of Trump\u2019s own Republican Party<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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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<\/a> in Congress of Israel\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere hasn\u2019t 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,\u201d Andrew Day, senior editor at The American Conservative, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

A slate of recent polls<\/a> has shown Republican disapproval of US policy towards Israel growing, if still markedly less than among Democrats. Notably, a Politico poll released<\/a> last week showed just a third of self-identified Make America Great Again (MAGA) voters, typically the most unquestioning of Trump\u2019s base, felt the economic costs of the war with Iran were worth it.<\/p>\n

Couple that with the widespread perception<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Trump personally perceives the risks, although the risk definitely exists,\u201d Day said.<\/p>\n

New push for diplomacy<\/p>\n

The timing of Tuesday\u2019s meeting is particularly notable, with Trump signalling on Monday that Washington was pursuing a new diplomatic overture with Iran.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> for three days.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s government had vehemently opposed the MoU, arguing that it strengthened Tehran\u2019s hand while yielding few concessions.<\/p>\n

Israel has continued to push for wider regime change and a zero-tolerance policy towards Iran\u2019s nuclear programme, in contrast<\/a> to the Trump administration\u2019s recent pursuit of off-ramps as it has sought to frame the conflict as a victory.<\/p>\n

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

At the time, Vance warned Israeli government officials against criticising the Trump administration: \u201cIf 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump again made reference to the unequal relationship: \u201cFrankly, we\u2019re being very nice to a lot of countries that would not survive without us. And you know who wouldn\u2019t survive without us? Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever criticisms the administration might have been making publicly or privately about Netanyahu, the policy hasn\u2019t changed,\u201d Matt Duss, the executive vice president of the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Instead, he said Tuesday\u2019s invitation to the White House reflects Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven that they\u2019ve been so close, perhaps Trump just feels it would be too big of a story if he didn\u2019t give him a meeting again,\u201d Duss said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cNetanyahu knows how to influence Trump,\u201d Duss said. \u201cAnd 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, for his part, has said Tuesday\u2019s meeting would address several issues, \u201cprimarily 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 said.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu eyes nearing elections<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Any face time with the US president could buoy Netanyahu\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny opportunity he has to be photographed with Trump, the most powerful person in the world, is a personal political benefit to him,\u201d Omer-Man said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wants to emphasise his relationship with Trump, and he\u2019s gonna argue that he\u2019s the only one who knows how to deal with the US and the only one with the relationship with Trump,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To be sure, there are ways the meeting could backfire, Omer-Man assessed.<\/p>\n

Trump could apply pressure related to a US-backed agreement between Lebanon and Israel, which is ostensibly aimed at Israel\u2019s complete withdrawal from Lebanon, but appears to allow for the Israeli military\u2019s near-indefinite occupation.<\/p>\n

The US president could further assert pressure on the Trump-backed 20-point \u201cpeace plan\u201d in Gaza, which has seen near-daily Israeli violations of the \u201cceasefire\u201d in the enclave. Ahead of Netanyahu\u2019s trip, the Israeli government approved<\/a> the entry of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) in Gaza, although no timeframe was given for a more complete Israeli withdrawal.<\/p>\n

The meeting also comes amid a virulent wave<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Condemnation of settler attacks has become a rare, bipartisan cause in the US, including within the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat could be the wild card here,\u201d Omer-Man said. \u201cAs 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously heating up and looking pretty bad at the moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Washington, DC \u2013 United States President Donald Trump is set to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,54,85,87,46,47,43,1032,1156,162198],"class_list":["post-563584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-il","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada","tag-us-israel-war-on-iran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}