As US-Israeli tensions deepen, the hastily announced meeting planned for Tuesday at the White House between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu may offer what the late Senator Lindsey Graham might have sardonically called his first posthumous contribution to US-Israel relations. 

Amid extraordinary regional uncertainty and recriminations about the Iran war, Graham’s funeral that day will bring the wartime partners together. The late senator spent decades arguing that America’s adversaries benefited whenever they saw daylight between Washington and Jerusalem. If his funeral prompts the two leaders to narrow that daylight, it would be a fitting final contribution to the US-Israel alliance from one of its most steadfast champions.

The meeting was hardly a foregone conclusion. Trump sounded tepid when asked about meeting Netanyahu if the Israeli leader came to Washington for Graham’s funeral. As American public opinion sours on the Iran war, Trump has sought to create some political distance from Netanyahu, occasionally praising the Israeli prime minister as a wartime leader while also deflecting criticism that Israel has been driving American policy toward Iran. Netanyahu, for his part, has been equally careful, repeatedly emphasizing that Trump alone decides America’s course.

Graham – who became one of Trump’s most trusted foreign policy confidants – would almost certainly have argued for holding the meeting and clearing the air. With Netanyahu facing Israeli elections in October and Trump bracing for the midterms, this is not the moment to........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)