As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels to Mar-a-Lago to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, the encounter is unfolding amid a growing rift between Netanyahu and the White House, and against the backdrop of multiple unresolved regional crises. According to U.S. and Israeli reporting, Netanyahu is expected to use the meeting to push the United States back toward confrontation with Iran, while also pressing for tougher U.S. positions on Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon.
NBC News reported last week that “Netanyahu is expected to make the case to Trump that Iran’s expansion of its ballistic missile program poses a threat that could necessitate swift action” and that “the Israeli leader is expected to present Trump with options for the US to join or assist in any new military operations.” The report suggests that Netanyahu is reframing Israel’s case against Iran away from nuclear concerns and toward missile development, a shift that has drawn scrutiny from analysts and critics inside Israel.
Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, said the strategy reflects continuity rather than a newly discovered threat. “Netanyahu plans to press Donald Trump for US backing for another round of war with Iran, now framed around Iran’s ballistic missile program,” Toossi said. “Netanyahu’s pivot to missiles should therefore be read not as the discovery of a new threat, but as an effort to manufacture a replacement casus belli after the nuclear argument collapsed.”
The pivot has also sparked pointed criticism from Israeli opposition figures. Yair Golan, chair of the Democrats, a center-left party in Israel, highlighted what he described as a stark contradiction in Netanyahu’s claims. “How is it possible that last June, at the end of the war with Iran, Benjamin Netanyahu solemnly declared that ‘Israel had eliminated Iran’s nuclear threat and severely damaged its missile array’; and that this was a ‘historic victory’—and today, less than six months later, he is running to the president of the United States to beg for permission to attack Iran again?” Golan said.
Iran is only one of several issues likely to dominate discussions at Mar-a-Lago. According to Israeli officials cited by the Washington Post, Netanyahu also wants Trump to “take a tougher stance on Gaza and require that Hamas disarm before Israeli troops further withdraw as part of the second phase of Trump’s 20-point peace plan.” These demands come as the Gaza ceasefire brokered by the Trump administration in October continues to fray.
Near-daily Israeli strikes have resulted in the deaths of at least 418 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Media Office. At the same time, Israel’s continued blockade of humanitarian aid has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced from homes destroyed by Israeli bombing, struggling to survive in winter conditions without adequate shelter. Desperately needed fuel, food, and medicine have entered Gaza in numbers far below what the ceasefire agreement required.
Tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv have also surfaced over the future of Israel’s military presence in Gaza. Earlier this week, Israel’s chief of armed forces suggested that Israel’s occupation of more than half of the territory could be permanent, remarks that were later walked back following reported outrage inside the White House. Trump, who has invested political capital in portraying himself as a peacemaker, has reportedly balked at Israel’s routine violations of the ceasefire agreement his administration helped broker.
According to Axios, Trump’s advisers increasingly fear that Netanyahu is deliberately undermining the peace process. The outlet reported on Friday that aides worry Netanyahu is intentionally slow-walking negotiations in hopes of resuming the war, rather than advancing toward a durable ceasefire and postwar framework.
Beyond Gaza, Netanyahu is also seeking continued U.S. support for Israel’s territorial expansion in Syria. Earlier this month, the Israel Defense Forces pushed through a UN-monitored demilitarized zone between Israeli and Syrian-held positions in the Golan Heights, a territory Israel occupies illegally. Israeli officials’ push into southern Syria went against the wishes of the Trump administration, which feared that such moves could destabilize the Western-backed government now ruling in Damascus following the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad.
Israel’s actions in Lebanon have added another layer of strain. Despite signing a U.S.-brokered ceasefire with Hezbollah in late 2024, Israel has continued to carry out strikes in Lebanon, with bombings becoming near-daily occurrences in December. Last month, the United Nations reported that at least 127 civilians, including children, had been killed in Israeli strikes since the ceasefire began.
Taken together, these fronts illustrate the scope of Netanyahu’s agenda as he arrives in Florida. Toossi described the visit as occurring amid “a backdrop of unresolved fronts, with widening disputes with Washington over the second phase of the Gaza ceasefire, including postwar governance, reconstruction, and Turkish involvement.” He added that Israel is simultaneously seeking “greater latitude to escalate again against Hezbollah in Lebanon, an end to US accommodation of Syria’s new leadership, and firm assurances on expanded military aid.”
Rather than resolving a single crisis, the meeting appears poised to test the broader contours of U.S. policy in the region and the extent to which Washington is willing to continue backing Israel’s military campaigns across multiple theaters. As ceasefires fray and humanitarian conditions deteriorate, the Mar-a-Lago talks may serve as an inflection point for U.S.-Israeli relations under Trump’s presidency.
“Taken together, Netanyahu’s visit is less about resolving any single crisis than about postponing strategic reckoning,” Toossi said. “The outcome will signal whether Washington is prepared to continue underwriting open-ended escalation, or whether this meeting marks the beginning of clearer limits on Israel’s regional strategy.”
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