Hosting Netanyahus, Trump warns of ‘major Mideast wars, maybe WW3,’ if he doesn’t win
Presidential nominee welcomes PM and Sara in first meet for 4 years; given pic of hostage Bibas boy, says: ‘We’ll get that taken care of’; doesn’t know how Jews can vote for Harris
Former US president Donald Trump warmly welcomed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday for their first meeting since their ties very publicly soured after Trump failed to win re-election in 2020.
With cameras rolling and flashing, the two men sought to repair what had been seen as one of the closest relationships between leaders when they were in office, now that Trump is once again the Republican presidential nominee three months out from a new election.
At their talks, also attended by Sara Netanyahu, Trump declared that he could not understand how Jews could vote for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, referring to remarks she made on Thursday after she met with Netanyahu regarding the suffering of Gazans that Trump called “disrespectful to Israel.”
Trump also charged that the world would see “major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war” if he didn’t win the election.
As things stand, he further said, “You are closer to a third world war” than ever “because we have incompetent people running our country.”
For his part, Netanyahu said he hoped his US trip would advance a hostage deal, and that he would be sending a negotiating team to Rome for talks shortly.
Welcome at the entrance
“Now I’m honored. Come on in, come on in,” Trump said as Netanyahu and his wife Sara walked up the steps of the Mar-a-Lago entrance.
“I brought you the best part!” Netanyahu quipped, gesturing at his wife.
“We’ve missed you,” said Sara as she and Trump exchanged kisses.
“It was the greatest dinner I’ve ever had,” said Trump, presumably referencing a previous meal they shared while he was president.
Trump and Netanyahu then locked hands and the former president pulled the prime minister in for somewhat of a bro-hug while saying, “Let’s get a good, a beautiful picture.”
The Netanyahus stood on either side of Trump, who smiled and gave his trademark thumbs-up to assembled photographers.
Netanyahu’s office separately released a clip from inside the resort of the premier presenting Trump with a picture of 4-year-old hostage Ariel Bibas, who was kidnapped by Hamas along with his parents and baby brother from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7.
Netanyahu was heard telling Trump that Ariel’s grandfather asked him to give the former president the picture.
“We’ll get that taken care of,” Trump responded, as they posed together.
Netanyahu then pulled out a blue hat inscribed with the words “Total victory” — a reference to his stated goal for ending the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. He has faced criticism from some in the security establishment and the Biden administration, which has argued that the slogan isn’t a realistic strategy in such a brutal war.
The baseball cap already caused a flap this week after the prime minister was photographed next to it in the meeting room of Wing of Zion, Israel’s so-called Air Force One, en route to Washington. The photo was reportedly removed from official channels following assertions the hat is a commercial venture by a pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 television anchor.
But the premier hasn’t moved away from the phrase, using it in his Wednesday speech to the US Congress.
Trump denounces Harris’s comments on Gaza
Trump and Netanyahu held their formal sit-down in a poorly lit dining room, with reporters briefly allowed inside before it started. The two men were joined by several of their aides, as well as Sara, who was seated next to the former president. Trump’s wife Melania did not appear to be present.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked @realDonaldTrump about his bullet wound as they walked to their meeting at Mar-a-lago. Former President Trump showed him where he was hit. pic.twitter.com/USaHwVNXiG
— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) July 26, 2024
At the sit-down, Trump claimed he has “always had a very good relationship” with Netanyahu. “It was never bad,” he said. He said he had “a secret weapon, Sara — as long as I have Sara, that’s all that matters.”
The Republican candidate called comments by his expected election rival US Vice President Harris about the war in Gaza disrespectful to Israel and said he did not know how Jews could vote for her.
“I think her remarks were disrespectful. They weren’t very nice pertaining to Israel. I actually don’t know how a person who’s Jewish can vote for her. But that’s up to them,” Trump said. “But she was certainly disrespectful to Israel, in my opinion.”
Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate, insisted Thursday that she would not be “silent” on suffering in Gaza, in comments made shortly after meeting Netanyahu at the White House. Her remarks drew furious Israeli complaints, claiming that they could complicate efforts to reach a deal with the Hamas terror group to free hostages and end the war in Gaza.
However, Harris also stressed pro-Israel points, branding Hamas a “brutal terror organization” that triggered the ongoing war with its October 7 onslaught, and noting that it included “horrific acts of sexual violence.” The vice president made a point of reading out the names of all eight American-Israel hostages still held captive by Hamas — something no other US official has done.
PM says he’ll send negotiators to Rome
In his comments alongside Trump, Netanyahu said he hoped his US trip would lead to a quicker hostage and ceasefire deal.
“I hope so. But I think time will tell,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’re certainly eager to have [a deal].”
He said he thought there had been movement in efforts to forge a ceasefire because of Israeli military pressure, and “I hope there’ll be sufficient movement to get a deal completed.”
He said he would dispatch a team to talks in Rome, “probably at the beginning of the week.” The Axios news site reported on Friday evening that CIA director Bill Burns is also heading to Rome this weekend to try to close a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas.
Trump said the hostages “have to be given back immediately, because there can be no way that they are in good shape. They’re obviously not being treated properly. You hope that they’re okay, but there are a lot of hostages that I’m sure will not be okay, and that’s just not an acceptable situation.”
Trump reiterated that he and Netanyahu have had a good relationship, and added: “I was very good to Israel, better than any president’s ever been. We did so many [things]: [recognition of the] Golan Heights [as Israeli sovereign territory]; we did Jerusalem, the capital — we actually built the embassy… The Iran nuclear deal.
“Unfortunately, the Biden Administration didn’t do anything” on Iran, he said. “We terminated the Iran nuclear deal, which was a tremendous thing, maybe the best thing that I did for Israel. But unfortunately, the Biden Administration didn’t do anything about it. We could have had a deal — one week after the election, we would have had a deal with Iran, and everybody would have been happy. But they didn’t do anything with it. They had all the cards. Iran was not using terror at all because… under the Trump administration, we gave them no money. They didn’t have money. Nobody was buying their oil. Now they’re a rich country. It’s too bad. We would have had a deal with Iran, and it would have been a good deal for everybody, including Iran. It would have saved the Middle East.
“The Biden administration — now she’s taken over,” Trump said, referring to Harris, “and she’s worse than him.”
“If we win, it’ll be very simple. It’s all going to work out, and very quickly,” he said. “If we don’t, you’re going to end up with major wars in the Middle East and maybe a third world war.
Trump concluded: “You are closer to a third world war right now than at any time since the Second World War. We’ve never been so close because we have incompetent people running our country.”
With that, Trump ended the public section of the sit-down.
In a subsequent statement on the meeting, the Trump campaign said he “pledged that when he returns to the White House, he will make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East and combat antisemitism from spreading throughout college campuses across the United States.”
Burying the hatchet
Netanyahu had been trying to seek Friday’s meeting ever since he was invited to address a joint session of US Congress.
Hours before the meeting, an Israeli official revealed that the prime minister had called Trump on July 4 to wish him a happy US Independence Day, apparently the first time the two had spoken since Trump’s presidency ended in January 2021.
Netanyahu has been in the United States since Monday. He addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, and met separately on Thursday with US President Joe Biden and Harris — the latter being Trump’s likely rival in the November 5 election.
The Trump-Netanyahu meeting in Florida coincided with the 33rd birthday of the prime minister’s eldest son Yair, who currently lives in Miami. Netanyahu and his wife will spend Saturday in Florida, given that Israeli prime ministers don’t traditionally fly over Shabbat.
The premier’s relationship with Trump soured when Netanyahu congratulated Biden for winning the 2020 election, which Trump falsely denies losing.
Trump told Fox News on Thursday that he was pleased by Netanyahu’s praise for him in the Wednesday address to Congress, but he added that the war against Hamas in Gaza must end soon.
In his speech, Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments, such as the US officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher US policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding US policy that Jerusalem’s status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
“I appreciated that,” Trump told Fox.
The former US president has previously faulted Netanyahu with failing to avert Hamas’s shock October 7 assault, when thousands of terrorists stormed southern Israel to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages, sparking the war in Gaza.
“I want him to finish up [the war against Hamas] and get it done quickly. You gotta get it done quickly, because they are getting decimated with this publicity,” Trump said in Thursday’s interview.
He also said Israel “gotta get your hostages back” and that he believes “many of them, maybe, are dead.”
“Israel is not very good at public relations, I’ll tell you that,” he added.
On July 17 — before Friday’s meeting was announced — the Axios news site reported that Netanyahu’s aides were hopeful that Trump and Netanyahu would mend fences, after Trump reposted Netanyahu’s video condemning the July 13 assassination attempt on the former US president.
Netanyahu and Trump last met at the September 2020 White House signing of the Abraham Accords, in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Trump wrote Netanyahu off, telling Israeli reporter Barak Ravid, “F**k him” in an interview months later.
The former US president has also accused Netanyahu of failing to cooperate in the 2020 assassination of top Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, which Trump had ordered.
Hours after announcing his meeting with Netanyahu, Trump published a letter he had received from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in which the latter expressed his outrage over the assassination attempt on the former president and wished him well. Trump sent the letter back to Abbas with a note thanking him and assuring him that all would be good.
The Times of Israel obtained the letter earlier Tuesday and reached out to the Trump campaign for comment. Shortly afterward, the former president tweeted out the letter on Truth Social, writing that he was looking “even more forward to achieving Peace in the Middle East!”
In interview excerpts released in 2021, Trump said he believed that Abbas “wanted to make a deal more than Netanyahu.”
For both men, Friday’s meeting highlighted for their home audiences a depiction of them as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and could again.
For Trump, the meeting could cast him as an ally and statesman, as well as sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.
One political gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could achieve more of his goals regarding Gaza, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.
Agencies contributed to this report.
