President Donald Trump disclosed on Saturday that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had asked to meet at the White House, with the encounter possibly taking place as early as the week beginning 9 July, following Trump’s return from the NATO summit in Turkey. However, an Israeli official quoted in US media cautioned that the timing remained uncertain because of the American leader’s travel schedule, suggesting the visit could slip to the following week. The two men last met in February, when Netanyahu presented a plan for a joint military campaign against Iran — an operation that began days later with combined US-Israeli strikes which, according to Trump, killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on the first day of hostilities.

Trump’s remarks to Axios underscored a relationship that he characterised as “very good” but in which, he said, “Netanyahu knows who the boss is”. The assertion reflected a widening gap between the allies since that February meeting. US officials told American media that many of Trump’s closest advisers now believe Netanyahu “was wrong about everything”. The friction crystallised after Trump signed a memorandum of understanding last month extending a ceasefire with Iran and launching new nuclear talks, a step the Israeli premier opposed. During a phone call, Trump also berated Netanyahu over Israel’s military escalation in Lebanon, reportedly calling him “crazy” and accusing him of ingratitude.

Viewed from Jerusalem, the prospective visit carries domestic weight. Netanyahu faces an election in October and opinion polls place his Likud party behind its rivals. The prime minister’s office said the two leaders, during a congratulatory call on the 250th anniversary of US independence, agreed to meet “soon” in the United States. Israeli officials played down the possibility of a quick encounter, noting that Trump’s presence at the 7–8 July NATO summit made an immediate meeting impractical. Regional analysts note that Netanyahu is likely to seek renewed US backing for a harder line on Iran’s nuclear programme and ballistic missile capabilities, even as Washington signals a preference for diplomacy.

On the diplomatic track, Trump said the United States and Iran had paused negotiations for one week to allow completion of funeral ceremonies for Khamenei. The former supreme leader’s death in the February airstrike, which Trump described as a joint US-Israeli operation, has not derailed talks: Trump claimed that Iran is “begging to make a deal” and that he had refrained from targeting the assembled Iranian leadership at the funeral because “we would have nobody to negotiate with”. The state of the dossier suggests that while a White House meeting could reset coordination, fundamental divergences remain over the pace and scope of any settlement with Tehran, with the United States prioritising a negotiated freeze and Israel insisting on a dismantling of Iran’s military infrastructure.

The exact date of the Netanyahu visit is yet to be fixed. Diplomats in Washington and Tel Aviv expect an announcement once Trump’s NATO schedule concludes, with the meeting likely to become a focal point for Middle East diplomacy in the northern summer.