Fresh off their joint military assault in Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump met in Washington Monday and Tuesday to take a victory lap. But it's unclear how much closer the two are to achieving a ceasefire deal in Gaza, as Trump ramps up pressure on his Israeli counterpart to end the 21-month-long war.

Experts expected that the visit, Netanyahu's third since Trump returned to office in January, would advance discussions of a ceasefire with Hamas. In a show of political theatre ahead of their Monday dinner, Netanyahu handed Trump an envelope with what he called a "well-deserved" nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize — an accolade Trump has publicly coveted for years.

Netanyahu departed the White House Tuesday evening without speaking to reporters. 

The U.S. president and his inner circle — including Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East — have repeatedly said a deal to end the war could be reached this week, even as Israel and Hamas keep mum on a potential timeline.

But the narrative Trump is touting about an imminent ceasefire might shed light on the complex dynamic playing out between him and Netanyahu in private, with the U.S. president pushing for a deal at all costs, according to experts who spoke with CBC News. 

"Certainly, they are allies. There's no question that Netanyahu was happy about Trump's re-election," said Guy Ziv, an associate professor at American University's school of international service and the associate director of the U.S. Center for Israel Studies.

"But I think there's also a lot that happens behind the scenes that we don't see — and that does include a lot of pressure."

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Trump's shifting timelines

Last Tuesday, Trump said Israel had "agreed to the necessary conditions" to finalize a ceasefire deal, a claim Israeli officials didn't confirm. Then, on the eve of Netanyahu's visit, the U.S. president said there's a "good chance" a ceasefire deal could be reached this week.

Both Israel and Hamas have tempered expectations of a deal being reached so soon. Just before the weekend, a representative for the Palestinian militant group said it had submitted a "positive response" to the proposal, but stopped short of confirming whether it had agreed to the terms outlined in that deal.

Netanyahu also hedged. Following the talk on Monday, Israel officials said a ceasefire could be reached, but that it would take more time. Officials from Qatar, who have helped broker the discussions, said the same.

Ziv says it's unlikely that Trump's goal for lasting peace in the region could be reached this week. 

"The problem is that there are significant obstacles to such a permanent ceasefire deal," he said.

Without a compromise, Israel and Hamas are an ocean apart on the terms for a pause in fighting. The Palestinian militant group has maintained it wants a complete end to the war before it frees the remaining hostages it abducted from southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Of the 250 people who were taken, 50 remain, and 20 are believed to be alive. 

Netanyahu, meanwhile, has said he won't agree to pause fighting until all the hostages are freed and Hamas disarms, disbands and goes into exile. He recently vowed there "will be no Hamas" in a postwar Gaza, but the group itself has refused to cede power in the territory.

Both Trump and Netanyahu have also mused publicly about transferring Palestinians out of Gaza and having the U.S. take ownership of the territory, a proposal Palestinians in Gaza have fiercely opposed and which spokespeople for Hamas have rejected as "absurd."

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The most recent ceasefire proposal includes a 60-day pause in fighting, during which time Israel and Hamas would negotiate a permanent end to the war, likely to be carried out in phases. It would also see remaining hostages exchanged for Palestinian prisoners. 

The U.S. administration facilitated an initial two-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas earlier this year, but the pause ended in mid-March when Israel launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip. Since then, Israel's military has continued its campaign in the region, including restricting the movement of food and aid into Gaza, which international human rights advocates have said is part of an effort to turn "food into a weapon of war."

Meanwhile, the U.S. is angling for renewed nuclear talks with Iran, and to move forward on the Abraham Accords, an initiative that began during Trump's first administration that aimed to normalize relations between Israel and other Mideast countries.

The question is whether Netanyahu came to Washington to continue discussions about Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities or whether Trump summoned him to push for a ceasefire in Gaza, said Gil Troy, a Jerusalem-based distinguished scholar of North American history at McGill University in Montreal.

"What's fascinating about Donald Trump is he's very committed to, in a surprising way, having America be very interventionist in its foreign policy," said Troy. "He doesn't want forever wars, but he wants America being the king of the world."

Who's in charge?

Netanyahu "completely and entirely" depends on Trump's good will, said former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert during an interview with CBC News Network on Monday. The U.S. president is highly popular in Israel, and Netanyahu is looking to shore up domestic support, which has slowly dwindled as the 21-month-long war in Gaza stretches on.

Netanyahu is currently on trial for corruption charges in Israel, to which he has pleaded not guilty — Trump has called for the trial to be cancelled. The prime minister also faces an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, which has accused him of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. He condemned and denied the allegations.

The expectation is that Trump will "force Netanyahu to do what almost everyone — both in Israel and across the world — wants, which is to end the war now, knowing that there is not any objective of great significance that can be achieved by expanding this war," said Olmert.

Netanyahu beholden to domestic interests

But Samar Ali, a research professor of law and political science at Vanderbilt University and a co-chair of the Project on Unity and American Democracy, said both the Biden and Trump administrations have wrung their hands when it comes to making decisions on Israel.

The U.S. government "does not seem to feel that it has the same agency in making decisions as it has in the past and as it has on other issues," she said, including on suspending military aid to Israel, even when Israel's military commits acts the U.S. condemns.

She believes Netanyahu has been the one largely calling the shots when it comes to the U.S.-Israel relationship. 

"The question is going to be, is Trump working to move that dynamic in a direction where he has more control over Netanyahu than in the past? He might be doing that," she said.

More than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 137,000 injured since Oct. 7, 2023, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. About 1,200 people died in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Ziv said Netanyahu has largely refused to end the war partly because he's driven by his own domestic political needs. 

"This could change, but up until now, he has been beholden to his far-right coalition partners," who are opposed to ending the war, Ziv said. The coalition ensures that Netanyahu stays in power, passing laws to protect himself from being removed from office during his corruption trial.

If the U.S. grows frustrated by what it perceives as Netanyahu dragging his feet, Trump could make it publicly clear the Israeli prime minister is standing in the way of the war's end, said Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders. 

"For the U.S. president — especially one as popular inside Israel as Donald Trump is — to say that, I think that … is something that could amount to the appropriate amount of pressure," he said.