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Netanyahu Heads to US for Trump Meeting: ‘We Can Redraw the Middle East For Better’

February 3, 2025

by: Joshua Spurlock ~ Mideast Update

President Trump Meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Monday, 3 February 2025 | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has high hopes for this week’s meeting with United States President Donald Trump, even as numerous challenges loom in the Middle East. With phase two of talks to release the Israeli hostages held by Hamas pending, the Iranian nuclear threat growing, and the region still changing, the Israeli leader called the Trump meeting “very important.”

“The decisions we made in the [last 15 months of] war have already changed the face of the Middle East,” Netanyahu was quoted by his office as saying before departing for Washington, DC on Sunday. “Our decisions and the courage of our soldiers have redrawn the map. But I believe that working closely with President Trump, we can redraw it even further and for the better.”

The topics for the meeting are what Netanyahu called “critical issues facing Israel and our region: Victory over Hamas, achieving the release of all our hostages and dealing with the Iranian terror axis in all its components—an axis that threatens the peace of Israel, the Middle East and the entire world.”

The meeting comes at a critical time as well. The ongoing Gaza ceasefire deal is entering its second phase, with the return of more Israeli hostages and an end to the war on the table. In a separate press release from Netanyahu’s office on Saturday night, Israel confirmed that negotiations on that second phase would begin on Monday during Netanyahu’s meeting with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East and the American point-person on the hostage crisis. In that meeting, Israel will present their positions, with Witkoff speaking with Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani and senior Egyptian officials later in the week.

Netanyahu isn’t the only Israeli leader who recognizes the significance of this week’s meeting with President Trump. Even key opposition member and leader of the National Unity party Benny Gantz called the meeting “of paramount importance” and wished Netanyahu “success” in a post on X (formerly Twitter) and translated from Hebrew by Google. Like Netanyahu, Gantz highlighted similar topics of concern: the return of all Israeli hostages, coordinating on the “Iranian challenge” with the United States, expanding diplomatic peace with more Middle East nations, and “removing Hamas rule.”

Netanyahu is the first foreign leader invited to Washington to meet with President Trump since the latter was inaugurated in his return to the White House, something the Jewish leader noted was “a testimony to the strength of the Israeli–American alliance. It’s also a testimony to the strength of our personal friendship.”

“That friendship and that cooperation has already yielded important results for Israel and the Middle East, including the historic Abraham Accords that President Trump led and which brought four historic peace treaties between Israel and its Arab neighbors,” said Netanyahu in the press release.

However, even as the trip brings back positive memories of past coordination with President Trump in his first term four years ago, this week’s meeting won’t just be for the nostalgia. The future is at stake—a future Israel believes can be bright with hope.

Said Netanyahu of working with President Trump again, “I believe that we can strengthen security, broaden the circle of peace and achieve a remarkable era of peace through strength.”

Posted on February 3, 2025

Source: (This article was originally published by the Mideast Update on February 2, 2025. Time-related language has been modified to reflect our republication today.)

Photo Credit: Trump Whitehouse/Flickr.com

Photo License: Flickr