Netanyahu heads to US for first Trump meeting since Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet US President Donald Trump at the White House for the first time since the start of the Iran war, over which they have publicly disagreed. Relations between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Trump have occasionally appeared strained in recent months, but both have sought to tone things down. The meeting is expected to be dominated by the war, which began with US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, as Washington says it wants to give negotiations a chance. Israel has not taken part in the latest round of hostilities between the United States and Iran, which flared earlier this month after an April ceasefire collapsed. The meeting will be the eighth between the leaders since Mr Trump's return to office last year, as well as their first in-person talks since the war began. "This is a great privilege, but it is also a great responsibility," Mr Netanyahu said before departing Israel on Monday. "We will discuss all the issues on the agenda, first and foremost Iran. Naturally, our goal is to safeguard our security and also to expand the circle of peace around us," he added. Relations between the two leaders reached a low point in April during negotiations on the ceasefire, with Mr Trump unleashing profanity-laced tirades against his Israeli ally. Mr Trump later described Mr Netanyahu in an interview as a "very difficult guy". Mr Netanyahu downplayed the exchanges as "tactical disagreements", saying they were aligned on the goals of the war. The leaders are expected to discuss the implementation of a US-sponsored framework deal signed by Israel and Lebanon last month, whose application on the ground has been challenging. The talks are also expected to touch on Gaza, as diplomatic efforts to kickstart the devastated Palestinian territory's reconstruction are at a standstill. Nearly three years after the war between Israel and Hamas broke out, the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire, and Israel continues to regularly target people the military says are militants. 'No break' in ties For Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the primary aim of the visit is to dispel reports of a cooling in relations between the allies. "I think that the main issue... is to show the world, to show Iran, and also even Lebanon and others as well specifically, that there is no break or any kind of major disagreement between the United States and Israel," he said. "There's more in agreement between the two leaders than disagreement," he added. For Mr Freeman, any differences between Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu concern the means - timeline, intensity, immediate objectives of operations - rather than the ends of the war. He also suggested that Mr Trump would mainly seek to focus on his two regional priorities, namely Iran and the expansion of the Abraham Accords, rather than on Gaza, which he sees as less of a priority. Palestinians walk along a debris-laden street in the Tuffah area of Gaza City The Abraham Accords are a series of US-brokered normalisation agreements signed during Mr Trump's first term, under which Israel established formal diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain for the first time, followed by Morocco. But other observers believe that the talks could address the possible easing of Israel's military presence in the region, such as in Lebanon, Syria or Gaza. Mr Netanyahu's visit comes months ahead of Israel's national elections, in which he plans to seek another term. Recent polls show Mr Netanyahu trailing, with public anger still lingering over his government's failure to prevent Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.