No one keeps track anymore of how many times President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have met since 2016. But if there was one defining feature of their meeting on Wednesday night, it was how markedly different it was from the past: its exceptionally low profile.
Trump did not wait for Netanyahu outside the White House, nor did he offer reporters the familiar photo opportunity of the two leaders posing with raised thumbs. The Oval Office was closed to questions, and there was no joint press conference afterward. Netanyahu, for his part, all but slipped away from the spotlight. Not only did he forgo briefing the Israeli media, he also skipped interviews with American conservative outlets, appearances he has never previously missed.
The visit itself was strikingly brief and businesslike. Netanyahu spent less than 30 hours on US soil, an unprecedentedly short trip.
American media outlets showed little interest in the prime minister's arrival in Washington, perhaps reflecting the frequency of his meetings with Trump. Television networks were instead focused almost nonstop on the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the elderly mother of an ABC anchor who was abducted from her home two weeks ago and has not been seen since.
The minimal coverage of the Netanyahu-Trump meeting mirrored the Washington weather. For nearly three weeks, the city has been blanketed in snow that has hardened into ice and refuses to melt.
Yet all indications suggest that the attempt to project a cool, understated atmosphere outwardly stood in stark contrast to what transpired behind closed doors. On the contrary, in order to avoid reinforcing the false and antisemitic claim that Israel dictates US policy, Netanyahu appeared intent on minimizing the public footprint of the visit.
Similarly, and perhaps even more so, the White House had no desire to place the Iranian issue at the center of the public agenda. It was the administration that closed the meeting to the press, part of a broader policy over recent weeks of limiting public discussion of the explosive issue, in every sense of the word.
Why? The most succinct explanation may have come from Sen. John Kennedy, who is not related to the famous political family, in an interview with Iran International. After meeting Trump on Wednesday, Kennedy said the president would "honor his commitments to the Iranian people," but stressed that this required "a careful strategy, not hasty actions." He added that Israeli intelligence, which Netanyahu likely presented to Trump during the meeting, would help clarify which operational options are feasible.
Kennedy's remarks closely align with those of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who spent last weekend with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and is known for his hawkish views on Iran. Graham also said Trump remains committed to the Iranian people while carefully weighing his next moves.
Taken together with the administration's public and leaked messages, the recurring conclusion is that US action against the Islamic Republic of Iran is not a question of if, but when. A diplomatic agreement between the two countries appears impossible. The Iranians are spoiling for confrontation. During rallies in Tehran marking the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, demonstrators symbolically threw Trump's messages into the trash, displayed coffins representing Iranian generals and signaled an unwillingness to compromise on the issues Trump and his team insist must be addressed.
"We have to deal with the missiles and everything else," Trump told Fox News. For the ayatollahs' regime, however, those subjects are nonstarters. Add to this the well-known positions over the years of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Trump himself regarding Iran. Anyone who believes they have suddenly transformed into Barack Obama or Antony Blinken does not understand the players involved.
Minutes before entering the White House on Wednesday, Netanyahu signed on as a founding member of the Board of Peace. Yet, as one knowledgeable Western diplomat put it, the meeting marked Netanyahu's seventh encounter with Trump since January 2025 and amounted to another session of a "war council."
If the two leaders did indeed discuss military action, that would help explain why their conversation extended well beyond its scheduled time.
