- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's unusually brief visit to the United States for the UN, lasting less than eight hours, signals significantly strained US-Israeli ties.
- Breaking with traditional protocol, Netanyahu is not scheduled to meet any US officials during his trip, a departure former ambassador Michael Oren described as a 'blow' ahead of Israel's upcoming general election.
- Netanyahu is slated to meet with nine world leaders, primarily focusing on deepening ties with Latin American nations, as relations with traditional European partners have been strained by the Gaza war and West Bank settlement expansion.
- The short duration of his visit is officially attributed to a tight schedule and the need to return to Israel before the onset of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
- Experts suggest that the absence of high-profile meetings, particularly with US officials, exposes Netanyahu's diplomatic weaknesses and could harm his image domestically.
- This perceived diplomatic slight occurs as Israel faces increasing diplomatic isolation globally and declining US public backing since the Gaza war began.
NEW YORK: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unusually brief trip to the United States to address the UN stands in stark contrast to his week-long visit last year that included a meeting with President Donald Trump, reflecting rocky times in US-Israeli ties.
Netanyahu is expected to be in New York for less than eight hours before returning to Israel, two Israeli officials said.
His office said he would meet nine world leaders, five of them from Latin American nations with which Israel has sought to deepen ties as relations with traditional partners in Europe have been strained by the Gaza war and West Bank settlement expansion.
But a statement from Netanyahu’s office made no mention of meetings with US officials at the annual UN General Assembly.
Tough election looming
Israel’s former ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, said he could not recall a time when an Israeli prime minister visited the US without meeting the president, describing this as a blow for Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s October 27 general election.
Trump has met Netanyahu eight times during his second term as president. Their last encounter was in July.
“It’s a campaign speech. Now it would be much better if that campaign speech were accompanied by a meeting with the president, or another world leader, or at least the secretary of state, but apparently it’s not,” Oren said.
“I don’t recall a time when the prime minister came to the United States and didn’t meet with the president... So I’m sure that he was disappointed by that.”
Netanyahu’s office said many world leaders requested to meet him “during the visit, but due to a tight schedule and the need to return before the onset of (the Jewish holiday of) Sukkot, the Prime Minister was only able to accommodate some of them.”
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Oren’s remarks.
Opinion polls indicate Netanyahu could lose the election, his security credentials still shaken by the October 7, 2023 attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, though he cannot be written off.
Netanyahu is to meet the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panama, Ethiopia and the vice president of Colombia, and the prime ministers of Greece, Slovenia and Papua New Guinea, his office said.
Trump and Netanyahu jointly launched a war on Iran in February, but the allies found themselves at odds as Trump sought to extricate the United States from the conflict with key goals unmet. Washington struck an interim deal with Tehran in June that was opposed by Israel before it unraveled a few weeks later.
US public backing for Israel has fallen since the Gaza war began, particularly among Democrats.
Israel has faced deepening diplomatic isolation since launching its war in Gaza in response to the October 7 attacks.
Earlier this month, once-steadfast allies Britain, France and Canada announced sanctions targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which drew a muted response from Washington.
Netanyahu faces diplomatic headwinds at UN gathering
As the war with Iran has dragged on, Trump and Netanyahu have split over how to prosecute it, straining a relationship between the two allies. Netanyahu has also faced global criticism both for Israel’s war in Gaza and settler violence in the occupied West Bank.
Many in Washington associate Netanyahu with the increasingly unpopular fight with Iran and Trump has labored to avoid the appearance that the Israeli leader forced him into a war that Trump said would be a “little excursion” lasting only weeks.
Day after day this week, as other heads of state have stepped to the podium at the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, many have harshly criticized Israel’s actions, particularly in Gaza.
Ahead of his visit, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani urged his arrest, saying the US should honor a warrant for Netanyahu issued by the International Criminal Court. He is wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity allegedly committed in Gaza, though the US is not a member of the court and New York City lacks the authority to arrest him.
Experts say without the usual high-profile meetings, Netanyahu's trip to New York could hurt his image at home.
“I think the trip is a mistake, because it exposes his weaknesses,” said Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israel relations and professor at Israel’s Bar-Ilan and Reichman universities.
While many Israelis view the UN as hostile toward Israel, he added, the fact that he could not secure a meeting with Trump only highlights how poorly Netanyahu has managed the relationship with his nation’s strongest ally.
In 2023, US President Joe Biden was reluctant to host Netanyahu at the White House but still made time to sit down with him on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
“Israel cannot survive without the United States,” Gilboa said.
The slight in New York follows sharp criticism from Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel and a longtime supporter of Israeli settlements, of the settlers attacking Palestinian communities in the West Bank. In unusual remarks for an ambassador, he referred to the attackers as “terrorists.”
“It’s significant of a deeper rift,” Oren said of Netanyahu’s slim itinerary.
When Trump was in New York on Tuesday, he met with an array of leaders from Arab nations, as well as from Denmark, Japan, Greenland, Ukraine and Venezuela, among others. He then quickly returned to Washington to roll out the red carpet for Chinese President Xi Jinping.
For a leader who likes to portray himself as a global statesman, it is a “big, big miss for him at a time where he can’t afford misses,” Natan Sachs, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said of Netanyahu.
On other past trips, Netanyahu met with a slate of high-profile leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and then-German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
This year, though, the prime minister’s office said “many world leaders” asked to meet with Netanyahu during his brief visit, but that he was on a “tight schedule” and needed to return to Israel before the start of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, which begins at sundown on Friday.
On his schedule, the statement said, were leaders from Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panama, Ethiopia, Greece, Slovenia, and Papua New Guinea.
