'There is a tussle between the White House and the Israeli government

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00:00This is Apropos. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived at the White House for

00:08talks with Donald Trump, the first foreign leader to be hosted by the US President since

00:14the Republican returned to power last month. On the agenda, negotiations for the second

00:19phase of the Gaza ceasefire, Iran, and relations with Saudi Arabia. For more, let's cross

00:25live now to Noga Tarnopolsky. She's our correspondent in Jerusalem. Firstly, Noga, Benjamin Netanyahu,

00:33as we say, the first foreign leader to be invited to the White House since Donald Trump

00:38returned to office. Firstly, how is all of this being viewed in Israel? How much of a

00:44boost, really, is this for the Israeli Prime Minister? If you can hear us, Noga, just firstly,

00:57how is this visit being viewed in Israel? Is it a big boost, we would presume, for the

01:02Israeli Prime Minister being the first foreign leader to be invited for talks at the White

01:08House since Donald Trump returned to office? Well, it's obviously a matter of prestige

01:16and Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, in almost every press release, has mentioned that he's

01:22the first leader to be invited, that he's the leader, the currently serving leader who's

01:27been invited to the White House more times than any other. All these kind of details,

01:32the number of nights he's spending at Blair House and so forth. I'm not sure, to be honest,

01:37how much impact it's having on Israelis. He has other problems in-house. Two Israeli

01:46soldiers were killed today. The Prime Minister has yet to comment on that. There's this ongoing

01:52anguish of the families of hostages still held by Hamas. So there are other matters

01:57that are preoccupying Israelis much more than this visit. Although, of course, it is being

02:02covered, it is being intensively even viewed, especially regarding the fate of the same

02:08hostages who are at the centre of almost everything in the Israeli public sphere right now. How

02:17much pressure is the Israeli Prime Minister coming under then at home to move on to the

02:21second phase of the ceasefire deal? Do you think that he's perhaps likely to try to delay

02:28that? What kind of tactics do you think he's going to be bringing into this meeting with

02:31Donald Trump at the White House?

02:36Well, it's an excellent question. Today, we've already heard leaks from the Prime Minister's

02:42entourage all day long about how Israel will accept, I'm quoting here, Israel will accept

02:49the elongation of phase one of this deal if the Americans ask for it, which is a coy way

02:56of saying that it's what the Israelis hope. Netanyahu is facing tremendous pressure in

03:02house in two opposite regards. On the one hand, from the vast majority of the Israeli

03:10people, close to 80 percent of Israelis want the war to end and the hostages to come back

03:16home, even if that means that remnants of Hamas will remain in Gaza. That's quite an

03:22extraordinary position for such a vast majority of Israelis to have a year and three and a

03:29half months after Hamas's attack on the Israeli south. On the other hand, the Prime Minister

03:35is facing real challenges to his hold on power. His finance minister, for example, has said

03:41flat out that there will be no phase two to this deal and that if there is, he will not

03:48only quit the government, he will topple the government. Phase two negotiations involve

03:54the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the return of all the hostages,

03:59a kind of final end to this war. Netanyahu fears that he will not be able to remain in

04:06power if that's what comes about. And we've already seen interesting divergences. For

04:12example, President Trump's envoy to the Middle East said today in public that negotiations

04:21on phase two have already started, whereas the Israeli team is saying out loud that the

04:28group, the negotiation team, kind of a B-team that Prime Minister Netanyahu has authorized

04:35to send to Doha for these negotiations, are merely to please Donald Trump and have no

04:43authority to even discuss phase two. So it's unclear what's happening, but there is a tussle,

04:50a public tussle between the White House and the Israeli government.

04:54Regardless of what we may be reading into the images that we're seeing coming from Washington.

04:58Noga, stay with us. We will come back to you, but let's bring in Barbara Slavin. She's a

05:02distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and also a lecturer in international

05:08affairs at George Washington University. Barbara, thanks so much for being with us on the program.

05:13This meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, it's underway. We saw the Israeli

05:19Prime Minister arriving at the White House just a few minutes ago. We heard there from Noga,

05:23Netanyahu's far right allies insisting that there's not going to be a phase two of this

05:28ceasefire deal. But surely that is going to be one of the priorities for Donald Trump

05:33going into this meeting. How much pressure do you think he's going to be applying

05:37on Benjamin Netanyahu to move this ceasefire along to ensure that it is successful?

05:43First of all, thanks for having me. I think we're going to have to wait and see. They're

05:47supposed to have a joint press conference after their talks have concluded. So perhaps we'll

05:52be able to tell something from that and from the body language in particular. Trump seems to want

06:00this particular phase of the war to end. He's been pretty clear about that. So I expect he's

06:06going to put a lot of pressure on Netanyahu. And he has tremendous leverage. He has the leverage

06:12of arms sales. They've just announced they want to, I think, sell another billion dollars worth

06:17of bombs to Israel. He has, of course, the issue of Iran, which is very, very important to Netanyahu,

06:25has been for decades. And we saw that the president agreed to some sanctions,

06:31new sanctions enforcement, but rather reluctantly. So I'm sure they're going to talk about that.

06:36But at the same time, Trump has said that the ceasefire might not hold. So I think he's giving

06:44himself some wiggle room. The bigger question for me is sort of what comes next. And Trump,

06:50again, in remarks to journalists, has talked about cleaning out Gaza, making everyone there

06:57move somewhere else while the place is, the rubble is removed and it's somehow refurbished.

07:04And how he could do that, it seems impossible to me. But I'm sure that's something else that

07:11they're talking about. Yeah. And he reiterated that before going into those talks this evening.

07:16Hamas has come back in the last few minutes saying that those remarks are a recipe for creating chaos

07:22in the Middle East, that obviously not going down well with the militant group. So how difficult

07:26is this next phase going to be, Barbara? And does Donald Trump have the patience for the details,

07:33or does he just want this to be done and dusted, as it were? Donald Trump doesn't have a great

07:39deal of patience. If this all falls apart, he'll move on to something else. He'll move on to Ukraine

07:45or maybe an Iran nuclear deal. We have not seen any kind of consistency from him when it comes

07:52to these issues. He and his envoy were happy enough to take credit for the ceasefire that

07:58the mere fact of their taking office pushed it through somehow. We've seen a number of hostages

08:04come home. Obviously, everyone would like to see all the hostages come home. But I worry about his

08:13staying power. I worry about his span of attention when it comes to anything in particular,

08:19and that includes the Middle East. And Barbara, Donald Trump also saying that he's planning to

08:23ramp up the pressure on Iran, presumably one area where those two men do see eye to eye.

08:28What do you think that kind of pressure is going to entail? Well, again, we're waiting to see

08:33whether there has been any direct contact between the Trump administration and the Iranians.

08:38So far, I don't think there has been. And it's not even clear to me that Steve Whitkoff, his

08:44envoy when it comes to Arab-Israeli issues, will also be his envoy on Iran. He has announced that

08:52he will tighten enforcement of existing sanctions. A lot of that will have to do with China, which

08:59buys a great deal of Iranian oil at a discount. So will the Chinese play ball? Is that going to

09:05be an element of Trump's conversations with the Chinese about tariffs and a number of other issues?

09:13And I think the Iranians are stealing themselves that they've expressed an interest in talking,

09:18but they're not going to give up their entire nuclear program. Anyone who thinks they will

09:24is kidding themselves. So I'm not hugely optimistic. I think there are some openings,

09:31some possibilities, but it's going to take patience. It's going to take skill.

09:35And I've yet to see that demonstrated by the Trump White House.

09:39And just in the last few minutes as well, Donald Trump, even though he's gone into that meeting,

09:42we're getting notifications here from more issues. He's talking about Saudi Arabia saying the Saudis

09:46are now not demanding a Palestinian state, even though that has been something that they said

09:51they would only agree to normalization with Israel if that was in place and if there was

09:57a credible pathway to a Palestinian state. So do you think that this is something Donald Trump

10:02is going to push for during those talks with Benjamin Netanyahu? Are you expecting any

10:06developments there? Well, he certainly would like to have Saudi Arabia normalize relations

10:12with Israel. But again, without some concrete concessions, and especially if we have

10:19more ethnic cleansing in Gaza, if there's an effort to somehow remove two million people who

10:25live there amid the rubble, I just don't see how Mohammed bin Salman could go through with

10:30any kind of normalization deal. And Noga, let's bring Noga back in,

10:34our correspondent in Jerusalem. These two men had a close relationship during Donald Trump's

10:40first presidency. How close are they now? And just a little more widely, how damaged has the

10:46US-Israeli relationship been by the Biden administration or has it?

10:54I don't think the Israeli-American relationship in any way was damaged by the Biden administration.

11:00In fact, the Biden administration offered Israel something very close to unfettered support

11:07in Israel's most difficult hour. I think it's important maybe to go back for a moment and

11:13remember the violence of Hamas's attack against Israel on October 7th, 2023, and the immediate

11:22full-on diplomatic and military support that the United States gave Israel and basically

11:28continued to give Israel to the end. Obviously, it's a very different style with Biden and with

11:34Netanyahu. And Netanyahu has perceived Trump all along as a much more convenient president for him.

11:41Netanyahu seems persuaded that he can manipulate Trump. He might. I don't know, obviously. And we

11:49don't know what's going on in that meeting. But Trump and Netanyahu have clearly divergent,

11:56direct interests right now. Donald Trump wants to be perceived as a global peacemaker.

12:01He tells almost every writer who's interviewed him that he deserves the Nobel Prize, that he

12:07should have already gotten it. He seems to be aiming for some sort of regional mark that will

12:14be absolutely linked to him as a token of success. I want to add one other thing that we

12:21haven't yet mentioned. The families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas have basically given up

12:28on Benjamin Netanyahu. Just before I joined you tonight, a right-wing pundit on an Israeli TV

12:35station said it openly. He said Netanyahu has no political interest in freeing the hostages.

12:41So when we say everyone has that interest, I'm not sure it's true, as hard as that may be to hear.

12:47And I think here we see a divergency. Donald Trump, under great influence from Miriam Adelson,

12:53one of his top supporters, and the widow of Sheldon Adelson, one of his most major supporters.

13:00She has influenced Trump and his administration greatly. The families of hostages basically began

13:08outreach through Adelson to the Trump team months ago already. And so we're seeing a divergence,

13:15not only in Netanyahu's interest to stay in power, which Donald Trump doesn't seem particularly

13:22moved by, but also in the focus. The Trump team constantly talks about getting all the hostages

13:28out, the Israeli citizens, whereas the Israeli government seems to be aiming at a completely

13:34different goal, which is somehow finessing the rest of this deal with their coalition partners

13:41back in Israel and managing to stay in power. Ladies, we'll have to leave it there for now.

13:47Thank you so much for being with us, both Noga and Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow at the

13:52Stimson Centre. Thank you so much. Do stay with us. We'll be right back with more world news.

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