Netanyahu at White House for first Trump talks during Iran war

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived Tuesday at the White House for his first in-person talks with President Donald Trump since the Iran war began, as the leaders seek to patch over public disagreements on the conflict. The meeting is expected to be dominated by the war, which began with US and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February but has seen a recent pause in the fighting 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 as an April ceasefire collapsed. The meeting is the eighth between the leaders since Trump's return to office in early 2025 and comes ahead of key electoral tests later this year for both Netanyahu and the US president: national elections in Israel and midterm polls in the United States. "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," Netanyahu said before departing from Israel. Relations between Trump and Netanyahu reached a low point in April during negotiations on the ceasefire with Iran, with Trump unleashing profanity-laced tirades against his Israeli ally. Trump later described Netanyahu in an interview as a "very difficult guy." Netanyahu downplayed the exchanges as "tactical disagreements," saying they were aligned on the goals of the war. Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, said Tuesday that Netanyahu's visit comes at a "critical time for the Middle East," with Iran continuing "to choose terrorism over negotiations" and blocking the key Strait of Hormuz waterway. Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said the primary aim of the visit is to dispel reports of a cooling in ties between the allies. "I think that the main issue... is to show the world, to show Iran, and also even Lebanon and others... that there is no break or any kind of major disagreement between the United States and Israel," he told AFP. "There's more in agreement between the two leaders than disagreement." For Freeman, any differences between Trump and Netanyahu concern the means — timeline, intensity, immediate objectives of operations — rather than the ends of the war.