Zelensky out, Netanyahu in. The comings and goings of foreign leaders at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida continue. 24 hours after the crucial visit of the Ukrainian president, it is the turn of the Israeli prime minister. The US media underline the delicate moment in the relations between the two leaders.
Three months ago Netanyahu had defined Trump as “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House”. Today that friendship is put to the test by disagreements on the main issues in the Middle East: Gaza, Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
For Netanyahu, the trip represents an opportunity to try to orient the American line towards tougher positions. In particular, the Israeli leader wants to convince Trump to demand the total disarmament of Hamas before any further withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, as part of the second phase of the 20-point peace plan promoted by Trump himself. Israel fears that a withdrawal without disarmament will strengthen Hamas and compromise long-term security.
Another central node is Iran. Netanyahu seeks US green light for new attacks against Iran’s ballistic missile program, possibly in a joint Israeli-American operation. This request, however, contrasts with the position of Trump, who in June had imposed the end of the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran and had proclaimed that the Iranian nuclear program had been “totally annihilated” by American stealth bombers.
Despite Iran remaining at the top of Trump’s strategic prioritieshis administration has reopened a negotiating channel with Tehran, preferring to test the diplomatic path before any new military escalation. Since then, US intelligence and the Pentagon have consolidated a more modest balance sheet than the June blitz: in harmony with the Israelis, American experts believe that those bombings halted the development of nuclear weaponsand that they delayed the Shiite regime’s plan by a couple of years or so. In the meantime, the ayatollahs have launched a new phase of very harsh internal repression, the “hunt for Mossad spies” has become the pretext for a massacre of opponents.
US-Israel differences also emerge on the Syrian front. The Trump Administration looks with irritation at Israeli military operations in Syria, considered an obstacle to the efforts of the new Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa to consolidate internal control. Trump has publicly warned Israel not to interfere with Syria’s evolution towards a stable and prosperous state.
In Lebanon, the situation is equally fragile. Israel continues to strike Hezbollah targets, accusing it of failing to respect its disarmament commitments under a truce brokered by the United States and France. However, these bombings risk triggering a new regional conflict, just as Trump wants to accredit himself as a leader capable of containing wars and promoting peace.
The Washington Post calls today’s meeting at Mar-a-Lago an “emergency summit”. Netanyahu, known for his hard line, faces an American president who has built his political image on the idea of being a “peacemaker”. In the past, Trump has already shown irritation at Israeli initiatives deemed destabilizing: from the attacks following the declaration of an end to the war with Iran, up to the raid against Hamas negotiators in Qatar, which forced Netanyahu to publicly apologize under American pressure.
The attack on Qatar it marked the most evident break in the Trump-Netanyahu axis: the American president sided with his Sunni Gulf allies, a cornerstone of his Middle Eastern policy.
The most explosive dossier, however, remains Gaza. Three months after Trump hailed the agreement between Israel and Hamas as a “new dawn” for the region, the implementation of the peace plan is stalled. The first phase of the ceasefire led to the release of hostages and prisoners and an increase in humanitarian aid, but the second phase did not take off. We still lack a political oversight body, a committee of Palestinian technocrats to govern Gaza and an international stabilization force tasked, among other things, with the demilitarization of Hamas. According to some previews, the government body could be officially presented at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.
Israel is reluctant to proceed without fully disarming Hamas and looks with suspicion at Turkey’s possible military presence in the international force, given the history of relations between Erdogan and the fundamentalism of the Muslim Brotherhood (a galaxy to which Hamas also belongs). Tensions with Washington increased when the Israeli defense minister spoke openly about Jewish settlements in Gaza, effectively denying Trump’s plan and provoking a harsh American reaction. The United States fears Israel will undermine the president’s credibility after brokering the deal.
Domestically, Netanyahu is caught between opposing pressures. In view of the 2026 Israeli elections, it must show itself to be strong and successful, especially in Gaza. After the attack on 7 October 2023 he was accused of failing to guarantee the country’s security. Today the far right criticizes him for not completely destroying Hamas, despite a devastating military campaign that left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and Gaza largely in rubble.
For Trump, Gaza is the test bed for a great peace agreement that he can claim as a historic success. For Netanyahu, accepting a solution that allows Hamas to survive would be an enormous political risk. Precisely for this reason, Gaza confirms itself as the heart of the conflict between two allies who, despite sharing basic objectives, increasingly diverge on the times, methods and price to be paid to achieve them.
December 29, 2025, 5.50pm – edit December 29, 2025 | 5.52pm
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