President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put a positive spin on their Tuesday meeting, which Trump called “very good” and Netanyahu deemed “excellent.” But the summit did little to resolve central issues in the U.S.-Israel relationship — suggesting disagreements between the allies and unprecedented skepticism of Tel Aviv among the American public are likely to continue.
On its surface, the summit addressed the Iran war, which Trump launched in partnership with Netanyahu and neither has been able to resolve, despite its rising toll for Americans, regional security and the global economy. Netanyahu said the countries share the goal of preventing Iranian development of nuclear weapons (an objective Iran denies having) and Trump on Wednesday issued a fresh threat toward Tehran after an Iranian missile attack on U.S. forces in Jordan. Trump has suggested Netanyahu should be more deferential toward the U.S., and before the Israeli leader arrived in Washington, his government finally approved a step forward for Trump’s plan for the Gaza Strip, allowing foreign troops to enter a small part of the territory.
The development regarding Gaza encapsulated the general mood: little headway in areas where stated U.S. and Israeli preferences diverge. Israel slashed the number of forces permitted and maintains it must continue controlling nearly 70% of the Palestinian territory, though Trump has spoken of Israeli withdrawal.
Tuesday’s meeting “was a meeting Trump preferred not to have, but was ultimately pressured into,” Eran Etzion, a long-time Israeli diplomat and former deputy head of the country’s national security council, told NOTUS. Netanyahu was visiting town for the first time since the Iran war began, for the funeral of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.
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Etzion argued the White House summit seemed designed to avoid tough conversations about simmering tensions.
“It was orchestrated to minimize both media exposure and one-on-one face time. The number of attendees was bloated, which probably means sensitive issues were off the table,” said Etzion, who is now seeking a seat in Israel’s parliament as a member of the Democrats party, a rival to Netanyahu.
A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Israeli policies that have fueled a backlash among Americans and complicated Trump administration gambits, like attempted diplomacy with Iran and a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, are intensifying.
U.S. sentiment toward Israel has cratered over the country’s devastating American-backed offensive in Gaza since 2023. An Economist/YouGov poll conducted July 27-29 shows 43% of Americans (including 22% of Trump voters) now say the policy constitutes a genocide. Nearly 1,200 Palestinians have been killed since a Trump-enforced ceasefire in October, according to Palestinian authorities, and millions more still face Israeli attacks. And relief groups say Israel continues to sharply restrict the flow of humanitarian aid. In Gaza, 67% of residents are at a crisis level or worse of food insecurity, the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification monitor said this month, and chickenpox has begun rapidly spreading in overcrowded camps of displaced Palestinians.
Rebuilding the strip — part of the mission of Trump’s Board of Peace — would require over $71 billion, more than seven times the cost of reconstruction following past Israeli campaigns, Oxfam, the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute and the Palestine Trade Center said in a July 22 report.
Meanwhile, concerns from human rights groups and U.S. lawmakers are ongoing about people from Gaza who Israel has detained and is accused of torturing, like Hussam Abu Safiya, a former head of a hospital who has been held since December 2024. Diana Buttu, an analyst and former peace negotiator who is monitoring Abu Safiya’s case, told NOTUS there have been no updates despite growing international calls for his release this summer following suggestions he may be on the brink of death. Broadly, for detained Palestinians, “nobody is held to account” within Israel’s system, Buttu said. (Israel denies mistreating Palestinian detainees.)
In the West Bank, the other Palestinian territory occupied by Israel under international law, increased violence by Israeli settlers close to Netanyahu’s far-right political partners and government moves targeting Palestinian families have spurred fears of a major conflagration.
Ahead of Netanyahu’s U.S. visit, several hundred former senior officials in Israel’s national security forces signed a letter asking Trump to pressure Netanyahu to limit “Jewish terror.” Among those targeted by orders disrupting Palestinian life is, Buttu said, a family of 14 in a village called Umm al-Khair who can no longer access their own bathroom because it has been deemed a “closed military zone.”
Together, the trajectory is a far cry from Trump’s talk of delivering Israeli-Palestinian peace and progress for the Middle East. For the president, that has broader ramifications. He has tied his marquee effort to sell American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia to Saudi recognition of Israel. But Saudi officials and those close to them continue to reiterate that is impossible without concrete action toward establishing Palestinian statehood.
Beyond Israel-Palestine, a conflict and humanitarian crisis are ongoing in Lebanon — and Iran has said developments in that country are crucial to any U.S.-Iranian diplomacy.
Israeli forces control much of the country’s south, enforcing what Buttu, who recently visited the Israeli side of the border, called “Gazafication” by demolishing homes and communities. Israel says its campaign is necessary to deter the Iran-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah.
The U.S. is promoting the idea that Lebanon’s government and military will disarm Hezbollah. Continued Israeli occupation undermines their authority to do so, analysts say — and Trump has declined to deploy American pressure over Netanyahu for a withdrawal.
With a settlement over Lebanon stalled and signs of fresh escalations, there’s no end in sight for the Iran war. In turn, there’s little chance of addressing the frustration with Netanyahu and with Trump for launching that conflict that has grown nationally, including among conservatives who are seeking a U.S.-Israel reset.
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