By Emily Rose and Rami Ayyub
JERUSALEM, Sept 24 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unusually brief trip to the United States to address the UN stands in stark contrast to his week-long visit last year that included a meeting with President Donald Trump, reflecting rocky times in US-Israeli ties.
Netanyahu is expected to be in New York for less than eight hours before returning to Israel, two Israeli officials said.
His office said he would meet nine world leaders, five of them from Latin American nations with which Israel has sought to deepen ties as relations with traditional partners in Europe have been strained by the Gaza war and West Bank settlement expansion.
But a statement from Netanyahu’s office made no mention of meetings with US officials at the annual UN General Assembly.
TOUGH ELECTION LOOMING
Israel’s former ambassador to Washington, Michael Oren, said he could not recall a time when an Israeli prime minister visited the US without meeting the president, describing this as a blow for Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s October 27 general election.
Trump has met Netanyahu eight times during his second term as president. Their last encounter was in July.
“It’s a campaign speech. Now it would be much better if that campaign speech were accompanied by a meeting with the president, or another world leader, or at least the secretary of state, but apparently it’s not,” Oren said.
“I don’t recall a time when the prime minister came to the United States and didn’t meet with the president… So I’m sure that he was disappointed by that.”
Netanyahu’s office said many world leaders requested to meet him “during the visit, but due to a tight schedule and the need to return before the onset of (the Jewish holiday of) Sukkot, the Prime Minister was only able to accommodate some of them”.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Oren’s remarks.
Opinion polls indicate Netanyahu could lose the election, his security credentials still shaken by the October 7, 2023 attacks by the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, though he cannot be written off.
Netanyahu is to meet the presidents of Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Panama, Ethiopia and the vice president of Colombia, and the prime ministers of Greece, Slovenia and Papua New Guinea, his office said.
Trump and Netanyahu jointly launched a war on Iran in February, but the allies found themselves at odds as Trump sought to extricate the United States from the conflict with key goals unmet. Washington struck an interim deal with Tehran in June that was opposed by Israel before it unravelled a few weeks later.
US public backing for Israel has fallen since the Gaza war began, particularly among Democrats.
Israel has faced deepening diplomatic isolation since launching its war in Gaza in response to the October 7 attacks.
Earlier this month, once-steadfast allies Britain, France and Canada announced sanctions targeting Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which drew a muted response from Washington.
(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alex Richardson)
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