Only last month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looked like he was on top of the world.
His stars were aligned, or so it seemed. US President Donald Trump was back in the White House, and he made sure that Netanyahu was the first foreign leader invited to the Oval Office.
During that meeting, Trump indicated that he backed every one of Israel’s goals in the region, and then some. On the day he hosted Netanyahu, he restored the maximum pressure policy against Iran and its nuclear program. He promised to work with Israel “to ensure Hamas is eliminated” — not just pushed out from ruling Gaza. He spoke repeatedly about his desire to broker the Saudi-Israeli normalization deal. He went after the International Criminal Court for targeting Israel’s leaders with arrest warrants.
Netanyahu, it seemed, was finally positioned to ensure Israel’s permanent place in the region, with powerful Arab states as allies and the Iranian axis in disarray, perhaps permanently.
Read the full article at the Times of Israel.
Published originally on May 18, 2025.
