| President Donald Trump is meeting today with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is Trump’s first meeting with a world leader at the White House this term, and it comes at a crucial time for U.S relations with Israel. Negotiations are ramping up this week over the next phase in a ceasefire agreement that Israel and Hamas first struck last month with the help of outgoing President Joe Biden and Trump’s incoming team. For Trump, today’s meeting is an opportunity to reassert the dealmaker role he loves to play and to push Netanyahu toward a permanent ceasefire that helps deliver on Trump’s ambitious campaign promise to restore peace to the Middle East. The two are scheduled to meet just after 4 p.m. in the Oval Office. James Jeffrey, a veteran diplomat who served during Trump’s first term, told us that he expected Trump to press for a permanent ceasefire that paves the way for the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, where officials have insisted on first charting a path toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. That’s anathema to some in Netanyahu’s governing coalition, threatening his political survival. “That’s what I think will be the biggest debate. I believe Trump will win,” said Jeffrey, who now chairs the Middle East Program at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based foreign policy think tank. “Trump will basically say, ‘Look, without this, Iran will slowly creep back, the Saudis will hedge their bets, and people will start supporting another round of resistance, be it in Gaza, be it in the West Bank. Slowly everything will unravel.’” The ceasefire agreement went into effect Jan. 19 and contains three stages, starting with a six-week pause in fighting. As part of the first phase of the deal, Hamas was expected to release 33 of the 98 remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinians in Israeli detention. Speaking to reporters yesterday in the Oval Office, Trump said he had “no assurances” that the temporary ceasefire will hold. “I mean, I’ve seen people brutalized,” Trump said. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. No, I have no guarantees that the peace is going to hold.” Trump then turned to his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who gave a somewhat more optimistic take, saying that the ceasefire “is holding” and that they are “certainly hopeful.” Witkoff and Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, met yesterday with Netanyahu, whose office described the meeting as “positive and friendly.” Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at Israel Policy Forum, told us that Trump’s comments yesterday signal that the president recognizes “the reality that [the deal] might fall apart.” Israelis have shown reluctance to move on to the next stage of the ceasefire amid concerns about Hamas’s continued hold of Gaza. Those concerns could mount to political ramifications for Netanyahu from his own supporters. “Trump and Witkoff both placed a lot of their own time and effort and also their own prestige on this issue of getting a ceasefire and making sure that it holds,” Koplow said. “Netanyahu has other interests at play.” Netanyahu will also be listening closely to better understand Trump’s positioning on Iran, as Israel is reportedly considering a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Despite some in his own party previously voicing support for Israel’s military retaliation in Iran, Trump has been less direct. Asked whether he would support Israel striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump told reporters on Jan. 23 that he wasn’t going to answer the question, adding that “it would really be nice if that could be worked out without having to go that further step.” Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser to Trump, told us that Netanyahu has already gotten some of what he’s wanted from Trump before his meeting. Trump ended Biden’s hold on sending 2,000-pound bombs to Israel and could be sending more aid soon. “That’s the really material manifestation,” Coates said. “That is the most important thing to Prime Minister Netanyahu and after that, I think he will be wanting to hear what President Trump is willing to do to get to a Saudi deal.” Trump and Netanyahu also bring their personal issues to this meeting. The two men had been friends in Trump’s first term, but their relationship soured after Biden won the 2020 election and Netanyahu congratulated the incoming Democratic leader. Trump publicly and privately criticized Netanyahu, accusing him of pulling out of a mission to kill a top Iranian general in 2020 and casting blame on Netanyahu’s government after Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. “Bibi Netanyahu rightfully has been criticized for what took place on October 7,” Trump told Time magazine in April. In another interview on Nov. 25, when Time magazine asked Trump whether he trusted Netanyahu, he replied, “I don’t trust anybody.” However, Trump has also downplayed the frictions, promising steadfast support of Israel on the campaign trail. “Both of them see themselves as the alpha male in the room, and that means they kind of understand each other, but also they’re not going to handle disagreements with the other well,” Jeffrey said. “They do get along, but I think that each of them will want to be the dominant player.” | 
Meryl Kornfield and 
