Herb Keinon
Jerusalem Post, Apr. 6, 2025
“And a new issue, less prominent in previous meetings but one that has suddenly moved to the forefront – especially given Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly bellicose rhetoric toward Israel (last week he said he hoped Allah would destroy Israel) – is the matter of Israeli-Turkish relations.”
In the 29 months that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s term as prime minister overlapped with former US president Joe Biden, he met with the president once in the White House. On Monday, Netanyahu is scheduled to hold his second meeting in the White House with President Donald Trump in just two and a half months.
That contrast speaks volumes. During the Biden years, access was rationed, tensions surfaced regularly, and there was often a sense of a crisis always lurking around the corner. Under Trump, the rhythm is entirely different: open doors, close coordination, and the sense of a looming crisis has been replaced by a working assumption of close alignment.
This hastily arranged visit differs from Netanyahu’s first one in early February, just two weeks after Trump’s inauguration. Netanyahu was the first foreign leader to meet Trump in the White House. That meeting was widely seen as symbolic – a way to publicly close the door on the tense Biden years when it took months for Biden to call Netanyahu, let alone invite him for a meeting. ...SOURCE