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Former President Donald Trump hit out at Vice President Kamala Harris for her insistence that Israel should avoid civilian casualties and allow Palestinians access to humanitarian aid as he hosted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago on Friday.
In video released by Trump’s presidential campaign, the Israeli leader was greeted by the ex-president on the front steps of his Palm Beach, Florida, mansion turned social club, where the pair embraced before smiling for the cameras.
In a subsequent video shot by handpicked news outlets invited into the facility by Trump’s campaign, the two right-wing politicians were seen seated at a table as if both men were conducting a diplomatic meeting.
Trump called the sitting vice president’s comments on the tragedies civilians have suffered in Gaza “disrespectful” and claimed that there would be a world war in the Middle East if he is not returned to the White House after this year’s presidential election.
“If we win, it'll be very simple. It's all going to work out, and very quickly. If we don't, you're going to end up with major wars in the Middle East, and maybe a third world war,” he said.
Trump also suggested that he was “better” for Israel than any other American president because he allowed Netanyahu and his extremist allies to conduct themselves as they wished with regard to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
For his part, Netanyahu was all smiles as he arrived at Trump’s social club. A New York Times photographer who was invited into the facility posted on X that Netanyahu asked Trump about the ear wound he received during an assassination attempt earlier this month.
The two leaders have long had a warm relationship, and both share legal troubles in their respective home countries. Trump and Netanyahu are each facing criminal charges against them, and are fighting to regain or remain in power in order to stay out of prison.
Netanyahu has generally been friendly with Republican presidents while acting to undermine Democrats and exploit divisions within the Democratic Party because GOP administrations have not pushed as hard for him to continue with the peace process.
But he has had his share of tensions with Trump since the ex-president lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Trump reportedly became enraged after Netanyahu acknowledged Biden’s victory and he has repeatedly condemned Israel’s “bad [public relations]” with the war in Gaza.
Earlier in the week, Netanyahu delivered a pugilistic address before a joint meeting of Congress in which he rejected calls to moderate the conduct of the war and condemned pro-Palestinian protesters as “useful idiots” serving the aims of the Iranian government.
He also met with President Biden in the Oval Office, thanking the outgoing US president for his long-standing support for Israel while he and the American leader spoke to reporters ahead of their bilateral talks.
“Mr President, we’ve known each other for 40 years, and you’ve known every Israeli prime minister for 50 years ... So from a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the State of Israel, and I look forward to discussing with you today and working with you in the months ahead on the great issues before us,” Netanyahu said.
Biden replied that he looked forward to working with the Israeli leader over his final six months in office and noted that his first meeting with an Israeli leader – then-prime minister Golda Meir – also included Yitzhak Rabin, then an assistant to Meir.
Rabin, who served as Israel’s head of government from 1974-1977 and regained the prime minister’s post in 1992, was the Israeli leader who signed the landmark peace deal that brought the Palestinian Authority into existence and laid out a roadmap for peace that has largely been ignored by Netanyahu. He was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli right-wing extremist who was opposed to the peace process.
He also met with Harris in her ceremonial Washington, DC, office after the vice president returned from a campaign stop in Texas.
Speaking after the meeting, she told reporters that she told the Israeli leader she would “always” assure that his nation would be able to defend itself.
