Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu took a victory lap on Monday to hail their recent joint strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities as an unmitigated success
Benjamin Netanyahu has nominated Donald Trump for a Nobel Peace Prize.
The Prime Minister of Israel, 75, handed the US leader a letter during a three-hour meeting on Monday, which he claimed was the nominating he has sent the Nobel committee. Mr Netanyahu was full of praise for the US President, 79, as the duo lauded their recent joint strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
“He’s forging peace as we speak, one country and one region after the other,” Mr Netanyahu told reporters, following the meeting, which also involved top aides, at the White House. The politicians also discussed efforts to push forward with a 60-day ceasefire proposal to pause the 21-month conflict in Gaza.
After he was handed the letter, Mr Trump told Mr Netanyahu: “Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful.” The Israeli leader has for years pressed Mr Trump and his predecessors to take military action against Iran’s nuclear programme.
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Mr Trump ordered US forces to drop “bunker-buster” bombs and fire a barrage of Tomahawk missiles on three key Iranian nuclear sites last month. It allowed Mr Netanyahu, who has been in charge of Israel since December 2022, to further ingratiate himself with Mr Trump, who for years has made little secret of the fact he covets a Nobel Peace Prize and sees himself as a capable peacemaker.
Mr Trump, currently in his second spell as President, trumpeted recent truces his administration facilitated between India and Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, and Israel and Iran.
And the former businessman maintained similar confidence after yesterday’s meeting. He told reporters: “I think things are going to be really settled down a lot in the Middle East. They respect us and they respect Israel… We have scheduled Iran talks, and they want to. They want to talk.”
Mr Netanyahu was also triumphant following his third visit to the White House this year. He too expressed optimism that his country’s success in Iran would mark a new era in the Middle East.
Yet Mr Trump, whose policies have largely aligned with Israel’s own priorities, pledged last week to be “very firm” with Mr Netanyahu on ending the war, without saying what that would entail. Pressure by Mr Trump has worked on Mr Netanyahu in the past, with a ceasefire deal having been reached right as the president was taking office again.
Mr Netanyahu has to balance the demands of his American ally with the far-right parties in his governing coalition, which hold the key to his political survival and oppose ending the war. Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israel affairs at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv, had said: “Trump thinks that Netanyahu owes him, and if Trump thinks that he needs to end the war In Gaza, then that is what he will need to do.”