Netanyahu to meet Biden and Harris on Thursday, Trump on Friday

WASHINGTON — Benjamin Netanyahu will meet United States President Joe Biden on Thursday at the White House, the Prime Minister’s Office said on Tuesday.

The meeting between the two leaders, their first since Biden visited Israel after the October 7 attack by Hamas, is scheduled for 1 p.m. local time (8 p.m. in Israel).

The White House also gave its first formal confirmation of the Biden-Netanyahu meeting, saying it will take place on Thursday afternoon and that afterwards the two leaders will meet the families of the American hostages. Roughly a dozen of them are in town for Netanyahu’s speech and have demanded that he use the address to announce his approval of the hostage deal currently on the table.

The meeting was originally expected to take place on Tuesday, but Biden was only returning to Washington on Tuesday afternoon from Delaware, where he has been quarantining after a bout with COVID.

Separately, after confusion spurred by a series of posts by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, an Israeli official said that the meeting between the former US president and Netanyahu will take place on Friday at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump had posted shortly before that his meeting with Netanyahu would be on Wednesday, then posted that it would be on Thursday. Minutes later, the candidate wrote on Truth Social that “at the request of Bibi Netanyahu, we have switched this meeting to Friday, July 26.”

The meeting will be closed to the press, the Prime Minister’s Office said.

The timing of the meeting means Netanyahu and his entourage will need to spend the weekend in the US before being able to return to Israel at the conclusion of the Jewish Shabbat on Saturday night.

According to Channel 13, the prime minister will only spend a few hours in Florida, and return to Washington to spend Shabbat there.

Responding to criticism over the timing of the Friday meeting — which falls on the birthday of Netanyahu’s Miami-based son Yair— the PMO said it was “of great importance to the State of Israel that the prime minister meets with President Biden and the two leading candidates for the US presidency.”

“On Thursday, the White House scheduled a meeting between President Biden and Prime Minister Netanyahu at 1 p.m., and a meeting with the vice president is scheduled for the afternoon,” said the PMO. “Therefore, the only possibility to meet with Donald Trump is on Friday.”

“Since it is not possible to fly on Shabbat, the delegation will return to Israel immediately at the end of Shabbat,” insisted Netanyahu’s office.

Families of hostages and fallen soldiers who accompanied Netanyahu to Washington were told by the PMO that they will be put on commercial flights home before Shabbat if they so desire.

Netanyahu knows both Biden and Trump well, but has had tense relationships with both in recent years.

Trump and Netanyahu got along during the 45th president’s term, as the White House helped Israel achieve key goals, including normalization deals with Arab countries and the moving of the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Since leaving office, however, Trump has blasted Netanyahu on multiple occasions, including angrily accusing him of disloyalty for congratulating Biden on his 2020 election win. Since October 7, he has also been harshly critical of the government’s management of the war effort and Netanyahu in particular for failing to prevent the Hamas attack.

Biden has long positioned himself as a leading supporter of Israel in the Democratic party. His administration stood staunchly beside Israel after the Hamas attack, and the Democrat became the first US president to make a wartime visit to the country, less than two weeks after October 7.

But the relationship between the two leaders grew strained under disagreements around Israel’s campaign against Hamas. They clashed early on over humanitarian aid to Gazans, the civilian death toll, the post-Hamas future of the Gaza Strip, and the need for a Palestinian state.

Relations reached a nadir in the spring, as Israel prepared for a major push into Rafah, Hamas’s last stronghold in Gaza. The White House shocked Israel by withholding its veto on a March United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas without directly conditioning it on a hostage release. Biden also froze the delivery of high-payload bombs over fears they would be used in the crowded city.

In recent weeks, the two sides have seemed to be more in sync, as the Rafah operation went ahead relatively smoothly, and an opportunity opened up for a comprehensive hostage release-for-ceasefire deal with Hamas.

Netanyahu is scheduled to meet with US Vice President Kamala Harris — the presumptive Democratic candidate for the White House — after his sit-down with Biden, according to the PMO.

A statement from a Harris aide on Monday said the vice president would use the meeting with Netanyahu to convey “her view that it is time for the war to end in a way in which Israel is secure, all hostages are released, the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza ends and the Palestinian people can enjoy their right to dignity, freedom, and self-determination.”

Harris will not preside over Netanyahu’s Wednesday speech to a joint session of Congress, as she will be in Indianapolis for a previously scheduled event — a convention of Zeta Phi Beta, one of America’s oldest Black sororities. “Her travel to Indianapolis should not be interpreted as a change in her position with regard to Israel,” her office explained.

Total victory

During his speech, Netanyahu will present “Israel’s justness and the heroism of its soldiers,” according to an official in the premier’s entourage.

He will also discuss Israel’s efforts to free all of the hostages held in Gaza and to achieve “total victory” over Hamas, said the official.

Netanyahu “will present in his speech the challenge facing Israel, countries in the region and the US from Iran’s axis of evil, and will present a new way to deal with this challenge,” the official noted.

The prime minister was writing his speech on Tuesday.

He will meet Congressional leaders from both parties before his address.

On Tuesday evening, Netanyahu was scheduled to meet at the Watergate Hotel with leaders in the US Evangelical Christian community, then with about 25 US Jewish leaders.

Speaking from the tarmac at Ben Gurion Airport before departing Israel on Monday morning, Netanyahu, who had already pushed off his trip by a day due to Biden’s illness, struck a bipartisan tone amid tensions with Washington.

Netanyahu said he intended to use his speech to Congress to reaffirm to the US that “regardless of who the American people choose as their next president, Israel remains its most indispensable and strongest ally in the Middle East.”

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.