Trump and Netanyahu to meet as new Middle East tests loom

A region that was awash in conflict and risk turns toward dealmaking—but for how long?

- Michael R. Gordon & Dov Lieber

When President Trump meets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, the Middle East will look far different from how it did only months ago. A region that was awash in conflict and risk seems to be ripe for diplomacy. At first glance, it appears to be a rare opportunity for Trump's brand of dealmaking.

Israel and Hamas have resumed indirect talks on a cease-fire in Gaza after months of heavy Israeli military action. Iran, battered by the U.S. and Israeli strikes, is sending signals that it might be willing to resume nuclear negotiations, albeit on its own terms. And the White House is reaching out to Syria's new government, hoping for improved ties between Damascus and Israel.

Trump and Netanyahu's White House meeting is partly aimed at claiming credit for these shifts and partly to discuss next moves. But the durability and scope of the diplomacy remains in question.

Trump's efforts to claim the mantle of a "president of peace," as Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called him, are likely to be tested by lingering differences with Netanyahu, the question of Palestinian statehood, a wounded Iran and the president's improvisational style.

A two-month fighting pause in Gaza is critical for Trump and Netanyahu to have any hope of making eventual progress toward a prize they both seek: the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. An even more ambitious goal of Trump's is to ease decades of animosity between the U.S. and Iran.

"On ending the war in Gaza, building on the strikes against Iran and expanding normalization, Trump and Netanyahu face a real moment of possibility," said Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Pentagon official who is now at the Atlantic Council. "Hopefully, they will seize it."