Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump will meet at the White House on Tuesday for the eighth time since Trump’s second term began — with both leaders facing exceptionally difficult circumstances.

The meeting is the first in five months, after a year and a half that saw the two leaders rarely go more than 10 weeks without seeing each other, reflecting the radical shift in their relationship since their last sit-down. Netanyahu only secured the Oval Office invite after weeks of effort, combining the trip with his planned attendance at the funeral of the late Republican senator Lindsey Graham.

The last meeting between the pair took place on February 11, some two weeks before they launched an ambitious joint campaign against Iran, with stated goals of destroying the Islamic Republic’s nuclear, ballistic missile and proxy programs, and even creating the conditions for regime change.

The campaign came to a halt in April at Trump’s orders after Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz strangled the global economy. No decisive victory had been achieved on any of the central objectives, while the political and economic costs for Trump had become painfully clear.

For Netanyahu, who many Americans see as having dragged Trump into the campaign, that halt was premature. Now, according to Hebrew media reports this week, the premier plans to present Trump with fresh intelligence on Iran’s military and nuclear recovery efforts under newly elected Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, apparently seeking a return to fighting.

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But convincing Trump to abandon a halting diplomatic process in favor of another major military campaign will be a tall order.

Netanyahu’s influence appears to have weakened in recent months, with Trump making several strategic decisions that ran against Israeli wishes — starting with his move to abruptly end the Iran campaign and sign a memorandum of understanding that Israel fears could facilitate the Iranian regime’s economic and military recovery while restricting Israeli freedom of action against Tehran’s chief proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.


Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara board the Wing of Zion plane on their way to Washington, July 27, 2026 (Screenshot/GPO)

More recently, Trump signaled openness to selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey — whose president has become one of Israel’s most prominent international adversaries —  despite Netanyahu’s public warnings. Washington also confirmed signing a civilian nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia without initially mentioning normalization with Israel as a condition, though Trump subsequently said the deal would not advance unless Riyadh joined the Abraham Accords.

Both leaders are looking to upcoming elections — a Knesset vote in late October followed by US midterms days later — as they stake out positions that appear to be in direct opposition to one another.

As Israeli elections approach in late October and US midterm elections follow days later, the two leaders appear to have opposing immediate interests on Iran.

Netanyahu seeks a more aggressive confrontation that can eliminate the remaining nuclear and ballistic missile threat, an achievement he can sell to Israelis as they head to the ballot box. Trump wants a deal that will resolve the crisis and bring prices down for American voters.

With the prime minister unlikely to change Trump’s mind, his most realistic goal may not be to pressure the president into immediate commitments, but to reach understandings with him on Israel’s security interests, red lines and the circumstances under which it will need to act against threats — including independently.

Even if the war hasn’t gone the way either may have hoped, it has still opened areas of genuine opportunity. Should the two leaders choose to exploit them, Tuesday’s meeting could advance a broader regional alignment on normalization. And it could see progress toward bilateral coordination regarding Gaza and Lebanon.

Netanyahu seemed in tune with that strategy in his remarks before takeoff, stating that he and Trump “will discuss all the issues on the agenda, first and foremost Iran,” before adding that, “of course, our goal is to safeguard our security while also expanding the circle of peace around us.”

An unfinished war and an unsatisfied public

At the top of the agenda will be what Jerusalem sees as an unfinished war, and what Washington considers unfinished negotiations with Iran.


Revolutionary Guard members and clerics mourn on the esplanade of the Imam Khomeini Mosalla Grand Mosque ahead of funeral ceremonies for the slain Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran, Iran, July 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

While Netanyahu believes that another solo or joint attack is needed to further degrade Iran’s remaining capabilities — not to mention to reassure a rather unsatisfied Israeli public — Trump appears unlikely to get on board with such a move.

While Netanyahu has tried to present the war’s results as a historic achievement, that has been a hard sell to Israelis who, after spending weeks in bomb shelters under Iranian ballistic missile fire, saw an abrupt end to the war with its adversary undefeated and its nuclear ambitions still extant.

While Netanyahu says Israel was able to diminish the “existential threat” posed by Iran’s nuclear program, he himself has asserted that the job is not done.

“There’s an enormous amount of anxiety [in Israel] that the commitments that were told to the average Israeli haven’t been fulfilled,” said Tom Nides, who served as US ambassador to Israel from 2021 to 2023 under former president Joe Biden.

While Netanyahu’s and the Israeli public’s remaining security concerns about Iran are legitimate, convincing Trump to return to war will be difficult, Nides added.

Trump refrained from striking Iran overnight Friday-Saturday for the first day in two weeks, reportedly after his most senior military and political advisers counseled against further escalation, citing concerns about expanding the conflict, depleting defense stockpiles, alienating Middle East Gulf allies and affecting energy supplies and the global economy.

US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said on Sunday that Washington hoped to give diplomacy more of a chance for now. Netanyahu would be hard-pressed to get in the way of any such process.


U.S. Vice President JD Vance, second from left, greets Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff Field Marshal Asim Munir, left, as President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, second from right, greets Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, while Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, right, looks on, on the occasion of high-level talks aimed at advancing a deal to end the Middle East conflict, at the Bürgenstock Resort in Obbuergen, Switzerland, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (Nathan Howard/Pool Photo via AP)

He will therefore need to discuss the possibility of Israel acting alone — but he is constrained on that front as well.

With only about three months until Israeli elections, it would be exceedingly difficult to secure American military or diplomatic support for a campaign that would in all likelihood keep the Strait of Hormuz closed. If the current Qatari-Pakistani effort to get the sides talking again pays off, an Israeli strike that rolls back those gains and triggers a fresh spike in energy prices in the US would be a nightmare for Trump before US midterms in November.

Trump is famously unpredictable, and events could still draw him toward an earlier escalation. But Netanyahu’s more realistic hope may be to secure agreed conditions for a joint campaign after November, or an American green light for eventual Israeli action if no deal is reached or if Iran violates one.

Gaza and Lebanon

Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon have been central issues in Netanyahu’s previous meetings with Trump and, at times, major sources of tension. For now, however, the two governments appear relatively aligned on both fronts, making them easier hurdles to clear.

The latest US-brokered agreements in Lebanon and Gaza serve key Israeli security and diplomatic interests if carried out according to plan, and Israel has little to gain and much to lose by appearing to be the spoiler of either effort. The key issue, rather, is establishing common ground on what Israel will be permitted to do if the other parties fail to honor the frameworks.

Six rounds of direct Israeli-Lebanese negotiations in Washington produced a US-backed framework for a gradual Israeli withdrawal from its security zone in southern Lebanon, alongside the deployment of Lebanese forces and the verified disarmament of Hezbollah.


Officials applaud following a trilateral framework signing ceremony at the US State Department with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, top center, and, seated from left, Israel’s Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, counselor Dan Holler and Lebanon’s Ambassador to the US Nada Hamadeh on Friday, June 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf)

Trump’s 20-point Gaza peace plan similarly calls for a gradual IDF withdrawal and the full demilitarization of the Strip and the disarmament of Hamas.

Netanyahu — perhaps in anticipation of Tuesday’s meeting — has already shown political will in recent days to comply with both plans. IDF troops withdrew from a pilot area in Lebanon last week to allow the Lebanese army to deploy, while the Israeli security cabinet on Sunday quite publicly approved the legal arrangements for the entry of the International Stabilization Force intended for Gaza.

For the two efforts to succeed, Jerusalem’s support must be accompanied by a credible threat of military action should they be violated or fail to be implemented, said Yaakov Amidror, a senior fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and former Israeli national security adviser.

“We should try to move the American plans forward as much as possible,” he said, adding that Israel should make clear it will keep military options on the table.

Amos Yadlin, president and founder of MIND Israel and a former head of the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate, called for establishing working US-Israeli teams to reach agreements on limitations and red lines.

“What if Hamas torpedoes the agreement? Then we agree that Israel may act militarily. What if Hezbollah undermines the pilot plan in the north? Then Israel acts,” Yadlin said, saying such parallel understandings would enable Israel to support the broader agreements without surrendering its freedom to respond if they fail.

On the (potential) bright side

Despite the political and military binds, Netanyahu also arrives in Washington with several potential opportunities to advance.

One is the emerging regional alignment against Iran, which has quietly deepened since the war. Bahrain and Kuwait have carried out unprecedented retaliatory strikes against Iran in recent days, while Arab states have increasingly found themselves aligned with Israel’s strategic concerns.


US President Donald Trump (left) stands with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his visit to the White House, in Washington, November 18, 2025. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

Bahraini King Hamad Al Khalifa’s recent phone call with President Isaac Herzog — initiated by Manama and aggressively publicized by its representatives — underscored a determination to further expand ties and indicates that regional concerns about Iran are pushing the kingdom into deeper intelligence and security cooperation with Jerusalem.

Saudi Arabia has also returned to the forefront after Washington signed a civilian nuclear agreement with Riyadh and Trump then conditioned it on recognizing Israel — an issue expected to feature prominently in Netanyahu’s meeting with Trump.

For Israel, the question is whether a revised US-Saudi package can once again link civilian nuclear cooperation to Israeli-Saudi normalization — as had been the case under President Joe Biden — a goal long viewed by both Jerusalem and Washington as the crown jewel of the Abraham Accords and a foundation for a transformed region with Israel firmly accepted by pro-Western Arab countries.

Normalization with the oil-rich Gulf kingdom remains a central strategic objective for Israel, given its position in the Arab world and the economic prospects of establishing a land corridor to India with the IMEC project, said Amidror.

This was also reiterated in reports following Senator Graham’s passing, as he had been a major promoter of Saudi-Israeli normalization, and was credited by Nides with initiating the Biden administration’s effort to reach a normalization agreement between the two countries.


Illustrative: An ultra-Orthodox man casts his ballot at a voting station on the morning of municipal elections, in Bnei Brak, on February 27, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90/File)

While Saudi Arabia has seemed less enthralled with the idea of late, it now finds itself on Israel’s side in nearly every regional conflict — with shared interests against Iran, its proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen.

Riyadh has supported pro-Sunni political forces in Lebanon in the past in an effort to establish influence in the country and curb Iran’s influence.

Meaningful progress toward Saudi-Israel normalization would give Netanyahu the political victory he is so eager to achieve on this trip. His central post-October 7 political argument — that he alone can rebuild Israel’s strategic position while working in lockstep with Trump — has become increasingly harder to sustain in the wake of the Iran war.

Tuesday offers an opportunity to change that and appear aligned with Trump on potentially game-changing regional initiatives.

With Netanyahu likely to have only one opportunity left to do that before October, when he defies New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani in September to travel to the United Nations General Assembly, the decisions made this week may define how Israelis view the country’s relationship with its most important ally come election day.