Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met with United States President Donald Trump, marking his fifth visit to the U.S.
Palestine, Iran and Syria were just some of the “five major subjects” on the table during the private lunch meeting, which took place at Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
Despite the significance of the topics, the two leaders emerged mostly with nothing but praise for one another, rather than any new major milestones for the Middle East or the U.S.
“We’ve never had a friend like President Trump in the White House. It’s not even close,” Netanyahu said, after announcing that he would be awarding Trump the highest civilian excellence honour in Israel.
The complimentary nature of the meeting was bolstered by Trump, calling his Israeli counterpart a “wartime leader” and the relationship between them as "extraordinary”.
When discussing the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, Trump dismissed Israel's violations of the deal, instead focusing on Hamas and saying that there would be “hell to pay” if they did not disarm within “a very short period of time".
“Israel has lived up to the plan, 100%,” he said, despite reports of concern and frustrations within his administration over Israel blocking the peace process.
Touching on other tensions in the Middle East, he said he hoped that the new Syrian government and Netanyahu would “get along”, despite Israel continuing to occupy Syrian territory, as well as broaching the possibility of Iran rebuilding its nuclear program.
“If they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that build-up,” he said.
