- Advertisement -Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long presented his closeness to the United States – both politically and personally – as evidence of his indispensability to Israel. For a time, it appeared as though US President Donald Trump was the most amenable of all past presidents to Israel and to Netanyahu, particularly after he became the first US leader to agree to participate in a joint war with Israel against Iran. - Advertisement -And yet, with that war stalling, Trump appearing more willing to make deals in the Middle East without Israeli input, and increasing criticism of Israel in the US, there is a sense in Israel that Netanyahu’s Trump card may not be as useful as it once was. “The real reason Netanyahu’s got this visit [to Washington] is purely cynical,” Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York, told Al Jazeera. “Supposedly there’s an agenda, supposedly they’re going to talk about Iran, F-35s and Saudi Arabia’s potential nuclear deal,” said Pinkas.