Netanyahu, Trump to Meet at Mar-a-Lago 07/26 06:16

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- As president, Donald Trump went well beyond his 
predecessors in fulfilling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's top 
wishes from the United States. Yet by the time Trump left the White House, 
relations between the two had broken down after Netanyahu rapidly congratulated 
Joe Biden on his 2020 presidential victory.

   On Friday, the two men will meet face-to-face for the first time in nearly 
four years in a test of whether the relationship can be mended. Both have an 
interest in getting past their differences.

   For Trump, now the Republican presidential nominee, the meeting could cast 
him as an ally and statesman, as well as sharpen efforts by Republicans to 
portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

   That's as divisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israel's war 
against Hamas in Gaza open cracks in what has been decades of strong bipartisan 
backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.

   For Netanyahu, who was in the United States to address Congress and meet 
with Biden, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect 
that he may once again become president of the United States, Israel's main 
arms supplier and protector.

   For both men, Friday's meeting at Mar-a-Lago will highlight for their home 
audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big 
things done on the world stage, and can again.

   One political gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms 
he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much 
hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out 
the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.

   "Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in 
tethering himself to the Republican Party," said Aaron David Miller, a former 
U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the 
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

   For the next six months, that means "mending ties with an irascible, angry 
president," Miller said, meaning Trump.

   Trump broke off with Netanyahu in early 2021. That was after the Israeli 
prime minister became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Biden for 
his presidential election victory, disregarding Trump's false claim he had won.

   "Bibi could have stayed quiet," Trump said in an interview with an Israel 
newspaper back then. "He made a terrible mistake."

   Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing 
ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both men's political 
careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the 
United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic 
relations with Israel.

   For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the 
first time. It was a major step in what Israel hopes will be an easing of 
tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.

   In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump 
portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and 
Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

   He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as "not 
prepared" for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for 
example.

   In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu gave 
recognition to Biden, who has kept up military and diplomatic support for 
Israel's offensive in Gaza despite opposition from within his Democratic Party.

   But Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump 
helped broker historic and thanking him "for all the things he did for Israel."

   Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli 
governments -- the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan 
Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward 
Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with 
longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem's status should be decided in 
Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

   "I appreciated that," Trump told "Fox & Friends" on Thursday, referring to 
Netanyahu's praise.

   He didn't quiet his criticism, however, of Israel's conduct of the war, 
which has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.

   "I want him to finish up and get it done quickly. You gotta get it done 
quickly, because they are getting decimated with his publicity," Trump said in 
Thursday's interview.

   "Israel is not very good at public relations, I'll tell you that," he added.