Netanyahu to meet Trump at White House on Tuesday

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington on Monday and meet President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday, his office confirmed on Thursday. The visit ends weeks of uncertainty over whether the meeting would materialize and marks the first face-to-face encounter between the two leaders since February, when they met to discuss U.S.-Iran negotiations.axios+3

A Meeting Weeks in the Making

Netanyahu had been seeking an appointment with Trump for more than two weeks, according to Axios, with earlier attempts failing to produce a confirmed date. A planned mid-July trip was scrapped after the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham was postponed, and as recently as Wednesday, both the White House and Israel acknowledged that discussions were ongoing but no meeting had been finalized.axios+4

Reports suggested the delays reflected deeper tensions. The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 3.58% reported this week that Trump has grown frustrated with the lack of a clear resolution to the Iran conflict, which began in late February and has now stretched into its fifth month. Haaretz reported that the American side had pushed back on a meeting in part to pressure Israel over its military presence in southern Lebanon. Netanyahu himself has privately acknowledged limited leverage over Trump's Iran decisions, according to Reuters Thomson Reuters Corporation ↗ 2.92%.naharnet+2

Graham's Funeral and the Iran Backdrop

During his Washington visit, Netanyahu is also expected to attend the funeral of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, scheduled for Tuesday at the Washington National Cathedral. Graham, a staunch supporter of Israel who died on July 11 at age 71 from an aortic dissection, will be honored first at the U.S. Capitol before a service where Trump is expected to deliver a tribute.krcrtv+3

The meeting comes at a fraught moment in the Middle East. The U.S.-Iran war that began with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear sites has produced no diplomatic resolution, and Israel remains on heightened alert for possible Iranian retaliatory strikes. Netanyahu said in early July that he and Trump "see eye to eye on just about everything" and hoped the visit would advance peace efforts with Lebanon and expand the Abraham Accords, but the intervening weeks have underscored the strains between the allies over the war's open-ended trajectory.jns