Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00This is Apropos. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has arrived at the White House for
00:08talks with Donald Trump, the first foreign leader to be hosted by the US President since
00:14the Republican returned to power last month. On the agenda, negotiations for the second
00:19phase of the Gaza ceasefire, Iran, and relations with Saudi Arabia. For more, let's cross
00:25live now to Noga Tarnopolsky. She's our correspondent in Jerusalem. Firstly, Noga, Benjamin Netanyahu,
00:33as we say, the first foreign leader to be invited to the White House since Donald Trump
00:38returned to office. Firstly, how is all of this being viewed in Israel? How much of a
00:44boost, really, is this for the Israeli Prime Minister? If you can hear us, Noga, just firstly,
00:57how is this visit being viewed in Israel? Is it a big boost, we would presume, for the
01:02Israeli Prime Minister being the first foreign leader to be invited for talks at the White
01:08House since Donald Trump returned to office? Well, it's obviously a matter of prestige
01:16and Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, in almost every press release, has mentioned that he's
01:22the first leader to be invited, that he's the leader, the currently serving leader who's
01:27been invited to the White House more times than any other. All these kind of details,
01:32the number of nights he's spending at Blair House and so forth. I'm not sure, to be honest,
01:37how much impact it's having on Israelis. He has other problems in-house. Two Israeli
01:46soldiers were killed today. The Prime Minister has yet to comment on that. There's this ongoing
01:52anguish of the families of hostages still held by Hamas. So there are other matters
01:57that are preoccupying Israelis much more than this visit. Although, of course, it is being
02:02covered, it is being intensively even viewed, especially regarding the fate of the same
02:08hostages who are at the centre of almost everything in the Israeli public sphere right now. How
02:17much pressure is the Israeli Prime Minister coming under then at home to move on to the
02:21second phase of the ceasefire deal? Do you think that he's perhaps likely to try to delay
02:28that? What kind of tactics do you think he's going to be bringing into this meeting with
02:31Donald Trump at the White House?
02:36Well, it's an excellent question. Today, we've already heard leaks from the Prime Minister's
02:42entourage all day long about how Israel will accept, I'm quoting here, Israel will accept
02:49the elongation of phase one of this deal if the Americans ask for it, which is a coy way
02:56of saying that it's what the Israelis hope. Netanyahu is facing tremendous pressure in
03:02house in two opposite regards. On the one hand, from the vast majority of the Israeli
03:10people, close to 80 percent of Israelis want the war to end and the hostages to come back
03:16home, even if that means that remnants of Hamas will remain in Gaza. That's quite an
03:22extraordinary position for such a vast majority of Israelis to have a year and three and a
03:29half months after Hamas's attack on the Israeli south. On the other hand, the Prime Minister
03:35is facing real challenges to his hold on power. His finance minister, for example, has said
03:41flat out that there will be no phase two to this deal and that if there is, he will not
03:48only quit the government, he will topple the government. Phase two negotiations involve
03:54the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and the return of all the hostages,
03:59a kind of final end to this war. Netanyahu fears that he will not be able to remain in
04:06power if that's what comes about. And we've already seen interesting divergences. For
04:12example, President Trump's envoy to the Middle East said today in public that negotiations
04:21on phase two have already started, whereas the Israeli team is saying out loud that the
04:28group, the negotiation team, kind of a B-team that Prime Minister Netanyahu has authorized
04:35to send to Doha for these negotiations, are merely to please Donald Trump and have no
04:43authority to even discuss phase two. So it's unclear what's happening, but there is a tussle,
04:50a public tussle between the White House and the Israeli government.
04:54Regardless of what we may be reading into the images that we're seeing coming from Washington.
04:58Noga, stay with us. We will come back to you, but let's bring in Barbara Slavin. She's a
05:02distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and also a lecturer in international
05:08affairs at George Washington University. Barbara, thanks so much for being with us on the program.
05:13This meeting between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, it's underway. We saw the Israeli
05:19Prime Minister arriving at the White House just a few minutes ago. We heard there from Noga,
05:23Netanyahu's far right allies insisting that there's not going to be a phase two of this
05:28ceasefire deal. But surely that is going to be one of the priorities for Donald Trump
05:33going into this meeting. How much pressure do you think he's going to be applying
05:37on Benjamin Netanyahu to move this ceasefire along to ensure that it is successful?
05:43First of all, thanks for having me. I think we're going to have to wait and see. They're
05:47supposed to have a joint press conference after their talks have concluded. So perhaps we'll
05:52be able to tell something from that and from the body language in particular. Trump seems to want
06:00this particular phase of the war to end. He's been pretty clear about that. So I expect he's
06:06going to put a lot of pressure on Netanyahu. And he has tremendous leverage. He has the leverage
06:12of arms sales. They've just announced they want to, I think, sell another billion dollars worth
06:17of bombs to Israel. He has, of course, the issue of Iran, which is very, very important to Netanyahu,
06:25has been for decades. And we saw that the president agreed to some sanctions,
06:31new sanctions enforcement, but rather reluctantly. So I'm sure they're going to talk about that.
06:36But at the same time, Trump has said that the ceasefire might not hold. So I think he's giving
06:44himself some wiggle room. The bigger question for me is sort of what comes next. And Trump,
06:50again, in remarks to journalists, has talked about cleaning out Gaza, making everyone there
06:57move somewhere else while the place is, the rubble is removed and it's somehow refurbished.
07:04And how he could do that, it seems impossible to me. But I'm sure that's something else that
07:11they're talking about. Yeah. And he reiterated that before going into those talks this evening.
07:16Hamas has come back in the last few minutes saying that those remarks are a recipe for creating chaos
07:22in the Middle East, that obviously not going down well with the militant group. So how difficult
07:26is this next phase going to be, Barbara? And does Donald Trump have the patience for the details,
07:33or does he just want this to be done and dusted, as it were? Donald Trump doesn't have a great
07:39deal of patience. If this all falls apart, he'll move on to something else. He'll move on to Ukraine
07:45or maybe an Iran nuclear deal. We have not seen any kind of consistency from him when it comes
07:52to these issues. He and his envoy were happy enough to take credit for the ceasefire that
07:58the mere fact of their taking office pushed it through somehow. We've seen a number of hostages
08:04come home. Obviously, everyone would like to see all the hostages come home. But I worry about his
08:13staying power. I worry about his span of attention when it comes to anything in particular,
08:19and that includes the Middle East. And Barbara, Donald Trump also saying that he's planning to
08:23ramp up the pressure on Iran, presumably one area where those two men do see eye to eye.
08:28What do you think that kind of pressure is going to entail? Well, again, we're waiting to see
08:33whether there has been any direct contact between the Trump administration and the Iranians.
08:38So far, I don't think there has been. And it's not even clear to me that Steve Whitkoff, his
08:44envoy when it comes to Arab-Israeli issues, will also be his envoy on Iran. He has announced that
08:52he will tighten enforcement of existing sanctions. A lot of that will have to do with China, which
08:59buys a great deal of Iranian oil at a discount. So will the Chinese play ball? Is that going to
09:05be an element of Trump's conversations with the Chinese about tariffs and a number of other issues?
09:13And I think the Iranians are stealing themselves that they've expressed an interest in talking,
09:18but they're not going to give up their entire nuclear program. Anyone who thinks they will
09:24is kidding themselves. So I'm not hugely optimistic. I think there are some openings,
09:31some possibilities, but it's going to take patience. It's going to take skill.
09:35And I've yet to see that demonstrated by the Trump White House.
09:39And just in the last few minutes as well, Donald Trump, even though he's gone into that meeting,
09:42we're getting notifications here from more issues. He's talking about Saudi Arabia saying the Saudis
09:46are now not demanding a Palestinian state, even though that has been something that they said
09:51they would only agree to normalization with Israel if that was in place and if there was
09:57a credible pathway to a Palestinian state. So do you think that this is something Donald Trump
10:02is going to push for during those talks with Benjamin Netanyahu? Are you expecting any
10:06developments there? Well, he certainly would like to have Saudi Arabia normalize relations
10:12with Israel. But again, without some concrete concessions, and especially if we have
10:19more ethnic cleansing in Gaza, if there's an effort to somehow remove two million people who
10:25live there amid the rubble, I just don't see how Mohammed bin Salman could go through with
10:30any kind of normalization deal. And Noga, let's bring Noga back in,
10:34our correspondent in Jerusalem. These two men had a close relationship during Donald Trump's
10:40first presidency. How close are they now? And just a little more widely, how damaged has the
10:46US-Israeli relationship been by the Biden administration or has it?
10:54I don't think the Israeli-American relationship in any way was damaged by the Biden administration.
11:00In fact, the Biden administration offered Israel something very close to unfettered support
11:07in Israel's most difficult hour. I think it's important maybe to go back for a moment and
11:13remember the violence of Hamas's attack against Israel on October 7th, 2023, and the immediate
11:22full-on diplomatic and military support that the United States gave Israel and basically
11:28continued to give Israel to the end. Obviously, it's a very different style with Biden and with
11:34Netanyahu. And Netanyahu has perceived Trump all along as a much more convenient president for him.
11:41Netanyahu seems persuaded that he can manipulate Trump. He might. I don't know, obviously. And we
11:49don't know what's going on in that meeting. But Trump and Netanyahu have clearly divergent,
11:56direct interests right now. Donald Trump wants to be perceived as a global peacemaker.
12:01He tells almost every writer who's interviewed him that he deserves the Nobel Prize, that he
12:07should have already gotten it. He seems to be aiming for some sort of regional mark that will
12:14be absolutely linked to him as a token of success. I want to add one other thing that we
12:21haven't yet mentioned. The families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas have basically given up
12:28on Benjamin Netanyahu. Just before I joined you tonight, a right-wing pundit on an Israeli TV
12:35station said it openly. He said Netanyahu has no political interest in freeing the hostages.
12:41So when we say everyone has that interest, I'm not sure it's true, as hard as that may be to hear.
12:47And I think here we see a divergency. Donald Trump, under great influence from Miriam Adelson,
12:53one of his top supporters, and the widow of Sheldon Adelson, one of his most major supporters.
13:00She has influenced Trump and his administration greatly. The families of hostages basically began
13:08outreach through Adelson to the Trump team months ago already. And so we're seeing a divergence,
13:15not only in Netanyahu's interest to stay in power, which Donald Trump doesn't seem particularly
13:22moved by, but also in the focus. The Trump team constantly talks about getting all the hostages
13:28out, the Israeli citizens, whereas the Israeli government seems to be aiming at a completely
13:34different goal, which is somehow finessing the rest of this deal with their coalition partners
13:41back in Israel and managing to stay in power. Ladies, we'll have to leave it there for now.
13:47Thank you so much for being with us, both Noga and Barbara Slavin, Distinguished Fellow at the
13:52Stimson Centre. Thank you so much. Do stay with us. We'll be right back with more world news.