Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke in a solemn voice as he lauded the efforts of the peacemaker who sat before him.
“He’s forging peace, as we speak, in one country, in one region after the other,” Netanyahu said. “So I want to present to you, Mr President, the letter I sent to the Nobel Prize Committee. It’s nominating you for the Peace Prize, which is well deserved, and you should get it,” he added, rising to hand him said letter.
President Donald Trump, who had just weeks earlier launched airstrikes against Iran, was touched.
“Wow,” he said. “Coming from you in particular, this is very meaningful.”
Soon after, Trump took a moment to reflect on his quest for peace.
“The biggest bombs that we’ve ever dropped on anybody, when you think non-nuclear,” the president said of the diplomacy that earned him the nomination for the prize previously awarded to Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela.
“I don’t want to say what it reminded me of, but if you go back a long time ago, it reminded people of a certain other event, and Harry Truman’s picture is now in the lobby,” Trump continued, comparing his efforts to the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan during the Second World War, an event that killed more than 120,000 civilians.
The ironies abound.
President Trump received a nomination for the Peace Prize weeks after launching military strikes against a country that his intelligence agencies had said was not building a nuclear weapon. He launched that action after single-handedly destroying a diplomatic deal that his predecessor, Barack Obama, had negotiated, and which was working.
He received it from a man who, had he delivered the nominating letter to the Nobel Committee in Norway by hand, would have been at risk of arrest under its obligation as a signatory to obey a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court.
From a man who is currently presiding over a war that has killed more than 55,000 people, more than half of them women and children, that has made Gaza the place with the highest number of child amputees per capita in the world, and where the blockade of vital aid has pushed much of the population to the brink of famine.
In short, being nominated for a peace prize by Benjamin Netanyahu is akin to being nominated for a ‘not breaking the law’ prize by fictional mob boss Tony Soprano.
But Netanyahu’s nomination has less to do with world peace and more to do with the softening up of Trump ahead of crunch talks this week.
This visit was supposed to be a victory lap for the Israeli prime minister after the realization of a decades-long-held wish to bomb Iran’s nuclear program. He achieved it with Trump’s help and he will likely need it again in the near future to ensure it does not rebuild.
The Israeli leader’s relationship with Trump is also a political crutch that he leans on when he needs to shore up support in his shaky ruling coalition at home. Trump has, in recent weeks, gone to the extraordinary lengths of calling for corruption charges against Netanyahu to be dropped, linking U.S. support for Israel to the fate of its prime minister.
All of which is why he ensured his departure was covered with much fanfare as he left Tel Aviv.
The same fanfare was not waiting on the other side, however.
The Israeli leader was whisked into the White House through the back door on Monday, and the pair had no public events scheduled as they met to discuss Israel’s ceasefire with Iran, a potential ceasefire in Gaza, and a wider peace deal between Israel and Gulf countries.
Some had read into that arrangement that Trump might be aiming to put more pressure on Netanyahu on this visit to achieve some of his goals.
In many ways, Trump and Netanyahu have never looked more in sync. They have just gone to war together, after all. But much of their relationship over the past year or so has been a one-way street, and Trump is beginning to notice.
Trump has given Netanyahu carte blanche to act with impunity with American weapons in Gaza, not even putting up the pretense of caring about civilian casualties, and even entertaining the Israeli right’s wildest dreams of mass ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza.
But he has his own plans for the region. He wants to build on the Abraham Accords peace deal between Israel and several Arab states from his first term, specifically bringing Saudi Arabia on board.
He would like — for his own reasons, likely not related to the welfare of Palestinians — to forge a peace in Gaza. He has made little headway in those goals largely because Netanyahu’s plans have superseded his own.
Trump has not been shy to show his frustration. A few weeks ago, he publicly admonished the prime minister for breaking a ceasefire agreement he had brokered with Iran.
“They don’t know what the f*** they’re doing,” he said of the leaders of both Iran and Israel, a statement that raised eyebrows for its equal apportioning of blame.
Trump is reportedly keen to use this trip to press for a ceasefire in Gaza and a permanent end to the war, and has promised to be “very firm” with Netanyahu to get it. Part of that pressure campaign appears to involve denying him the oxygen of publicity until he can show some results.
If some kind of deal is reached, or if Netanyahu gives Trump enough to make him feel like he’s won a victory, expect a longer-than-usual press conference to make up for it, filled with war stories, tales of bravery, bunker busters, daring pilots, and peace in our time.
