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President Donald Trump welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, DC on Tuesday. Netanyahu is the first foreign leader to meet with the 47th President.

President Trump and PM Netanyahu and their advisors held a bilateral meeting that included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Secretary of State Marco Rubio joined via a secure line. On the Israeli side, Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, and his military secretary, Lt.-Gen. Roman Gofman, attended the meeting.

Trump and Netanyahu also held a one-on-one meeting and had dinner together. An Israeli source said that Netanyahu's meeting with Trump "went beyond our expectations and dreams" and was "the friendliest meeting ever between an American president and a prime minister of Israel."

The prime minister gave President Trump a symbolic golden beeper for display. He also gave Trump an actual pager of the kind Israel used in its operation against Hezbollah terrorists.

PM Netanyahu is so popular in Washington that he had to extend his stay by several days to accommodate all the requests for meetings. On Wednesday, Netanyahu had what he called an "excellent and warm" meeting with Vice President JD Vance and national security advisor Mike Waltz. He also met with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and with several Senators, including Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Tom Cotton (R-AR). Today the Prime Minister met with House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

During his press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, President Donald Trump called for resettling Palestinians outside of Gaza, clearing the debris of fallen buildings and the unexploded weapons from the site, and rebuilding Gaza into a prosperous economic area.

President Trump made sometimes conflicting comments about the details, but the overall concept upends much of the conventional wisdom about the region and ignited a storm of reaction and commentary.

Prime Minister Netanyahu applauded Trump’s "willingness to puncture conventional thinking that has failed time and again, to think outside the box…[and] say things others refuse to say."

In a statement to the Associated Press, RJC's communications director, Sam Markstein, said:

President Trump is not only the Commander in Chief; he is the greatest Dealmaker in Chief in American history. Elections have consequences – and as we saw in President Trump’s first term, he brings out-of-the-box thinking across the board. President Trump is a disruptor, and after decades of failed policies, we are encouraged that the President is pursuing a bold, new vision for the region.

Remember: the pundits and DC political class said there would be war when he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognized Jerusalem as the eternal capital of Israel—and they were wrong; they said the Abraham Accords were impossible—and they were wrong again. As the most pro-Israel President in US history, we are confident in President Trump’s ability to bring security, peace, and prosperity to this troubled region.

Further reading

• Michael Oren: Trump takes a wrecking ball to the Middle East status quo

• Shoshana Bryen: Trump’s vision, and Gaza 2.0

President Donald Trump is moving quickly on executive actions to implement his policies, including policies of special interest to the American Jewish community.

The President is expected to sign an executive order later today sanctioning the International Criminal Court for targeting the US and its allies, including Israel. The order will put financial and visa-related sanctions on individuals and families who assist the ICC in its investigations of US citizens or allies.

Last week President Trump signed an executive order to combat antisemitism "vigorously, using all available and appropriate legal tools, to prosecute, remove, or otherwise hold to account the perpetrators of unlawful anti-Semitic harassment and violence."

Subsequent to that order, the Department of Education on Monday opened investigations into "widespread antisemitic harassment" at Columbia University and four other schools since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians.

In addition, the Trump Administration is forming a multi-agency task force "to root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses," the Department of Justice announced Monday. Leo Terrell, the senior counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, will lead the task force, which will include representatives from the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services, along with other agencies as the task force develops.

President Trump signed a national security memorandum that reinstates his "maximum pressure" policy on Iran. (Fact sheet here.)

He also signed an executive order withdrawing the US from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and ending US funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). These actions reinstate policies from the first Trump Administration that President Joe Biden reversed. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar announced on Wednesday that Israel would follow the US lead and leave the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

President Donald Trump's team is hard at work. Highlights from this week include:

• Trump envoy Richard Grenell gets 6 American hostages released from Venezuela

• After Marco Rubio visit, Panama says it won't renew "Belt and Road" agreement with China

• Pam Bondi issued a flurry of orders on Day 1 as Trump’s attorney general

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) has reintroduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act in the House. The RJC released a statement in support of the bill, saying:

We’re grateful to Congressman Lawler, who is a remarkable friend of the Jewish community and our causes - and to fifty-eight members from both parties who signed on as original cosponsors of this vital bill.

Last year, Mike Johnson got the Antisemitism Awareness Act passed through the House with 320 votes, but Chuck Schumer blocked it in the Senate.

Thanks to the American people, Schumer is now in the minority – and the Jewish community’s push to base federal investigations of anti-Jewish discrimination on the full definition of antisemitism proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance is a big step closer to success.

NY Times: Trump’s Gaza notion sets off Democratic infighting and G.O.P. doubts

Matt Brooks, the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition and a supporter of the administration, argued that Mr. Trump was fulfilling his campaign promises by rejecting what he described as "failed foreign policy."

"The hallmark of President Trump is he does shatter old norms and existing norms when they don’t work," Mr. Brooks said. Mr. Trump, he added, "is willing to take the risk."

JNS: Campaign spending at pro-Israel political action committees up in 2024

The Republican Jewish Coalition also ratcheted up its spending in what spokesman Sam Markstein called "the most important election of our lifetimes."

"For Jewish Americans, who care deeply about combating antisemitism on our streets and college campuses and strengthening the US-Israel relationship, 2024 was a life-saving election," he said.

The RJC and its super PAC spent $19.7 million during the 2024 elections, more than four times the $4.5 million spent during the 2022 campaigns.

"With the stakes so high, the RJC was laser-focused on helping deliver the presidency for Donald J. Trump," Markstein told JNS. "The results from coast to coast are clear: President Trump received a historic share of the Jewish vote in 2024, and we are gratified to have played a significant role in moving even more Jewish voters to the GOP."

JI: Republican Jewish Coalition backs Elbridge Colby for top Pentagon post

The Republican Jewish Coalition urged the “swift confirmation” of Elbridge Colby as undersecretary of defense for policy in the Trump administration... In the letter, which was sent on Thursday to Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, RJC leadership said it was "confident" Colby "will enact the strong pro-Israel policy of" President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, arguing the nominee "will be an asset to" the administration’s national security team.

WSJ: US readies new $1 billion arms sale to Israel

The Trump administration has asked congressional leaders to approve new transfers of roughly $1 billion worth of bombs and other military hardware to Israel at the same time the White House is working to preserve a fragile cease-fire in Gaza, according to U.S. officials familiar with the sale.

The planned weapons sales include 4,700 1,000-pound bombs, worth more than $700 million, as well as armored bulldozers built by Caterpillar, worth more than $300 million, the officials said.

Eli Beer: Donald Trump’s return to the White House will undoubtedly reshape the future of Israel

In the past decade, I have heard people label [Donald] Trump as an antisemite. My personal experiences tell a different story. His consistent support for Israel, his actions and even his financial contributions to United Hatzalah have reaffirmed his commitment to the Jewish people and the Jewish state.

…Just weeks after Oct. 7, I was invited to deliver a keynote speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition convention. Our United Hatzalah volunteers had witnessed unspeakable horrors—murder, rape, mutilation—as they entered the line of fire to save lives. My wife and children were among those who responded, putting their lives in danger, too. My speech moved the audience, including the newly appointed Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who wept as he expressed his unwavering support for Israel to me after my speech. Every single Republican Congress member I met that day pledged to fight for Israel and the release of hostages taken into Gaza that day.

On the sidelines of the convention, I had the privilege of holding a meeting with Trump organized by our mutual friend, philanthropist Dr. Miriam Adelson. I shared firsthand accounts from our volunteers about the atrocities they had witnessed on Oct. 7. Trump was outraged and horrified by the brutality of the Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists. He vowed that under his presidency, such a tragedy would never happen again. That meeting left me with absolute certainty: If Trump were re-elected, Israel would have the full backing of America. I later learned that he repeated these accounts to friends and colleagues throughout his campaign, underscoring how deeply they affected him.