The issues on the White House agenda of upcoming meeting between Bibi and Donald are clear; everything else is unclear.
By Jonathan Feldstein
On Monday, all eyes will be on President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu as the later comes to Washington for what will be their third meeting this year. This makes Netanyahu the world leader who has most visited Trump in the White House since the start of 2025. Conspiracy theorists and anti-Israel propagandists will tell tales of the Netanyahu (Israel) tail wagging the Trump (US) dog, and worse. Their venom will stream as they scream of schemes, bringing radicals across the political spectrum – from left to right – into an unholy alliance. Their biased agenda to bash Israel at every opportunity aside, nobody truly knows what’s going to happen in front of the camera, much less behind the scenes.
There are many things that are intuitive, many guessed about, and perhaps some leaked. However, as far as the agenda items, it’s anyone’s guess about what that and the outcome will be. Here are some things to look for.
Both leaders will take and share credit publicly, praising one another for the recent achievements in eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat, literally if not figuratively spiking the ball in the end zone. Will there be public declarations of deterring Iran and other bad actors, announcements of additional support for Israel to heighten its preparedness? Privately, it’s reasonable to imagine they will discuss intelligence assessments of actual accomplishments, additional threats, and the need for regime change in Iran to actually bring peace, not just for Israel and the US, but also for the Iranian people, albeit while not publicly stating this. If the Iranian nuclear program has only been set back by two years, what’s Plan B?
As for the highly enriched uranium that created the urgency for the recent attack, enough to produce as much as ten nuclear weapons, the question is what happened to it. If it was in Fordow, one would think that radioactive fallout would be an issue. Could it have been smuggled out of Iran to North Korea, China, or Russia? Could it have been moved, protected, turned into dirty bombs, to be smuggled across borders and threaten Israel, the US, and the rest of the world?
There are indications that high on Trump’s agenda will at least be a push to end the war in Gaza, maybe even some declaration about how that is happening, with Netanyahu smiling at the president’s side. Will such remarks be coordinated or a surprise? Ending the war meaningfully however requires more than Israel’s withdrawal of its troops. It requires the complete eradication of Hamas in Gaza, and the release of the remaining 50 hostages. Talk of a 60-day ceasefire in exchange for a handful of hostages will embolden Hamas and not achieve either of these goals. It will not bring peace.
Reports that Israel has accepted such a framework and Hamas has rejected it are not surprising or new. Netanyahu will surely remind Trump that Hamas’ terrorist infrastructure can be defeated, but its ideology (and influence elsewhere) remains alive and well, and that what’s needed is a true solution for peace in Gaza. In this context, there will likely be declarations about a Gazan future free of Hamas, but will there be any other long term realistic plan proposed?
After celebrating the recent joint success in eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat, it’s hard to imagine Trump doing a 180-degree pivot, strong-arming Netanyahu (particularly as a surprise) to agree to an end of the war in Gaza without achieving the war’s goals. But it’s also hard to imagine Netanyahu not bowing to a degree of pressure by Trump, in order to maintain the relationship. Surely Netanyahu is not coming to Washington for a public dressing down as happened with Ukrainian President Zelinsky.
Would peacemaker Trump, seeking and believing that even the most intractable issues and genocidal of jihadis can be dealt with through a deal, place himself as guarantor for Hamas not having control in a restructured Gaza? How could that be enforced? Would that mean US control, even boots on the ground, as he hinted in previous statements? Might additional brazen comments be made, even if less than practical, to cajole the Arab world into a broader deal as well?
It could be risky for Trump because Hamas is not looking for a deal, but to survive another day, to achieve its goal of annihilating Israel. Terrorism is their means, and the hostages are their currency. That won’t change. Yet such an offer, if it could even happen, could take pressure off Netanyahu at home, claiming success for bringing (some) hostages home, and buffer challenges to his premiership from within his own coalition on one hand, and from the public on the other that he has not done enough to secure the hostages’ release and end the war on the other.
Only time will tell – and it will tell it soon!
About the writer:
Jonathan Feldstein - President of the US based non-profit Genesis123 Foundation whose mission is to build bridges between Jews and Christians – is a freelance writer whose articles appear in The Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Townhall, NorthJersey.com, Algemeiner Jornal, The Jewish Press, major Christian websites and more.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).