Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he would «of course» meet Ron DeSantis during a high-profile trade mission as the Florida governor weighs a presidential bid.
Netanyahu’s comments came in an interview on CBS’s «Face the Nation» on Sunday morning.
“Of coursehe said on CBS’s «Face the Nation» Sunday morning when asked if he would meet with the governor. “I will meet everyone. Why not? I meet with Republican governors and Democratic governors. I’m not avoiding the question and, in fact, I’m hastening to answer it… I think it’s my job and I think it’s important for bipartisan support of Israel in the United States. I make a point of that.
DeSantis’ office has not confirmed that he has scheduled a meeting with Netanyahu and did not return a request for comment from NBC News.
Until now, it was unclear if DeSantis would get a meeting with the Israeli leader.
DeSantis’ announcement Friday of a global trade mission specifically noted that he would meet with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, as well as British Foreign Minister James Cleverly. But remarkably, he did not mention whether he would meet Netanyahu in Israel.
Netanyahu is seen as a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, who is running for a second term and has been relentlessly attacking DeSantis in recent months despite the fact that the Florida governor has not officially entered the presidential race. In the past, Netanyahu has been reluctant to weigh in on the US election.
As DeSantis considers a potential 2024 presidential run, he has drawn criticism, including from some in his own party, for an apparent lack of foreign policy experience after referring to the war in Ukraine as a «territorial dispute.» He later downplayed those comments and switched to harsher anti-Russia language.
DeSantis has long touted a strong relationship with Israel as one of his top priorities, but Netanyahu’s close ties to the former president set up a thorny dynamic with Trump and DeSantis preparing to clash in the presidential race.
DeSantis is scheduled to deliver a speech at the “Celebrating the Faces of Israel” conference in Jerusalem on Thursday. In a press release, his office said he would meet with «government leaders» and «Israeli companies that have invested or are interested in investing in Florida.»
The statement noted that bilateral trade between Florida and Israel reached $651 million in 2022 and has grown 65 percent in the past five years.
DeSantis also met with Netanyahu in 2019 and called him «great friend from florida.»
DeSantis’ support for Israel has been evident even before his gubernatorial administration. During a 2017 trip as a congressman, he joined a group of US lawmakers on a fact-finding mission to Israel, where he scouted locations for a possible US embassy move to Jerusalem, and also met with Netanyahu.
In addition to an effort to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, DeSantis also sponsored a bill designed to prevent boycotts of US allies, including Israel, and one that would amend the Iran Sanctions Act (CISADA). to allow states to impose their own sanctions. beyond federal sanctions. He also wanted to limit US support for the Palestinians and would have banned the purchase of «heavy water», an important component for nuclear reactors, from Iran.
In his book, «The Courage To be Free,» DeSantis highlighted the 2017 trip and the accompanying press conference, in which he expressed his opinion that then-President Trump would make good on his promise to move the embassy to Jerusalem.
“My words created a certain stir in Israel. Was an announcement imminent? people wondered,” Desantis wrote. «I was self-employed and my trip was not coordinated with the White House, so the answer was: not necessarily.»
Later that year, Trump announced that he was moving the embassy.
A month before that announcement, DeSantis called a subcommittee hearing to press the issue.
“From my seat in the House, I wanted to create a sense of inevitability about the relocation of our embassy,” DeSantis wrote. “I looked at a handful of possible locations, and the site that I thought was the best ended up being the site selected by the Trump administration.”
The Trump campaign strongly rejected the idea that DeSantis’s advocacy of moving the embassy had anything to do with the eventual decision to do so.
“People have tried to take credit for President Trump’s hard work,” Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, told NBC News. «It never ends well.»
jonathan allen contributed.