Netanyahu to Washington on Saturday on a mission to save the alliance with Trump

Benjamin Netanyahu departs on Saturday evening for Washington, D.C., on a four-day visit that could be his last as prime minister attempting to salvage his coalition.

Although the official cover for the visit is his participation in the memorial service for Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, whom Netanyahu described as a “dear friend” and one of Israel’s most prominent supporters in Congress, the core of the visit and his behind-the-scenes plans carry more complex strategic dimensions.

The crux of the visit lies in the possibility of holding a summit with U.S. President Donald Trump, though this remains uncertain. While Israeli sources told the Jerusalem Post that Netanyahu places the summit meeting at the top of his priorities, Axios reported that a White House official stated the president’s schedule does not currently include the meeting, offering only an evasive remark: “We’ll see what happens.”

According to military analyst Ben Caspit on the Monitor website, and as reported by Yedioth Ahronoth citing political and military sources, Netanyahu is seeking to achieve three main objectives, all of which intersect with the approaching October Israeli elections: restoring shaken confidence with the U.S. administration, influencing the trajectory of nuclear negotiations with Iran, and coordinating field operations on hot regional issues.

Ultimately, Netanyahu’s visit—if the meeting takes place—will serve as a pivotal moment for testing the cohesion of the Israeli-U.S. relationship under Trump’s second term, and will help determine the course of several contentious regional files, from Iran and Lebanon to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, while the calculations surrounding the Israeli elections remain strongly present in the background.