Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Friday with former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, exchanging warm handshakes and discussing efforts to free the remaining Israeli hostages still in captivity in Gaza.
Trump greeted Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, with kisses at the doorway — the latest sign of a thaw in the relationship.
Trump and Netanyahu had worked together well when Trump was in office, but Trump resented Netanyahu’s decision to congratulate President Joe Biden for winning the 2020 presidential election.
Netanyahu presented Trump with a portrait of Ariel Bibas, one of the two red-headed children kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, together with their mother (their father was kidnapped separately). The children are thought to be alive.
The two met a day after Vice President Kamala Harris caused controversy by blaming Israel for humanitarian suffering in Gaza and offering her own version of a ceasefire proposal — one that infuriated Israeli negotiators.
Asked by reporters in Mar-a-Lago whether Harris’s remarks had hurt the prospects for a deal, Netanyahu said that he hoped not.
Trump was more aggressive in attacking his new rival. “I actually don’t know how someone who’s Jewish could vote for her, but that’s up to them,” he said. He added that she was a left-wing radical who had “destroyed San Francisco.”
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
