It appears that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is headed back to the US this month for his fifth visit since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, and his first since the ceasefire went into effect in Gaza.
Trump himself hasn’t confirmed the trip or even the invitation. But Netanyahu’s office put out a statement this week saying the president invited Netanyahu back to the US “in the near future,” and an Israeli official told The Times of Israel that the trip would likely come days after the Christmas holiday, potentially at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The mood was certainly festive the last time they met — in Israel on October 13, hours before the Simchat Torah holiday. A ceasefire had taken hold in Gaza, all 20 living hostages were back in Israel, and Middle Eastern leaders had banded together to back Trump’s plan to disarm and remove Hamas.
It was “not only the end of war, but the end of an age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God,” said Trump in a raucous Knesset address that often veered into exuberant improvised levity.
But as Netanyahu makes plans to head back to the US, the mood has shifted and the premier’s standing has been dented.
Published originally on December 4, 2025.
Read the full article at the Times of Israel.
