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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met US President Joe Biden on Thursday, a day after his polarising joint address to the US Congress that drew boycotts and protesters.
The meeting is Netanyahu’s first visit to the White House since he returned to power in late 2022, and is seen by US officials as a chance to push the Israeli premier on a proposed Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal that he has yet to publicly endorse, including in his congressional speech.
Netanyahu remains under fire over the failures that led to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and faces growing calls to agree to the US-backed deal opposed by his far-right coalition partners that would bring an end to the fighting and free the hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“It’s reaching a point that we believe a deal is closable and it’s time to move to close that agreement,” a senior US administration official said ahead of Netanyahu’s meetings, adding that both Israel and Hamas had to take steps that would allow for the deal to be implemented.
About half of congressional Democrats skipped Netanyahu’s speech on Wednesday, in which he praised both Biden and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump but remained defiant about his war effort and the thousands of demonstrators who had gathered nearby to call for the US to stop arming Israel and an end to the war in Gaza.
In his speech the prime minister reiterated that Israel would not stop until it had achieved “total victory” over Hamas, the militant group that carried out the October 7 attack that sparked the war.
“America and Israel must stand together,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday. “Our enemies are your enemies, our fight is your fight and our victory will be your victory.”
The prime minister will meet vice-president Kamala Harris on Thursday afternoon. Harris, who did not attend Netanyahu’s address to Congress, on Thursday denounced the protests, saying that “antisemitism, hate and violence” had no place in America.
She specifically hit out at the demonstrations outside Union Station, a few blocks from the US Capitol where Netanyahu was addressing lawmakers. Some of the protesters vandalised a large fountain, and spray-painted anti-Israel slogans in that area of the city.
Despite the pressure, the prime minister on Wednesday laid out his postwar vision, telling US lawmakers that Israel wanted to see a “demilitarised and deradicalised Gaza” and that it did not intend to reoccupy the enclave but would seek to “retain overriding security control” for the “foreseeable future” to prevent a resurgence of Hamas.
He was vague on postwar governance in the area, calling for a civilian administration run by Palestinians “who do not seek to destroy Israel”.
The US and other allies have been working to revitalise the Palestinian Authority, which has official control over the occupied West Bank, to eventually play a role in governing Gaza, but this has been rejected by Netanyahu.
The war in Gaza has strained Israel’s relations with the US, and Netanyahu made an effort to strike a conciliatory tone in the chamber.
This was a notable contrast with a speech he gave in 2015 urging Congress to scuttle the nuclear deal with Iran that had recently been agreed by the US and other governments, infuriating then-President Barack Obama and Democrats.
Additional reporting by Mehul Srivastava in London
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