JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to travel to Washington next week, with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel set to give him the invitation on Wednesday, media reported.
Emmanuel, who is on a private visit to Israel, was expected to propose a meeting with US President Barack Obama next Tuesday.
"Netanyahu and Rahm Emanuel will meet on Wednesday at 5:00 pm (1400 GMT) at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem," a statement from the premier’s office said.
The two men will hold an "informal discussion" about a broad range of US-Israeli issues, a White House spokesman said.
On Thursday, Netanyahu is to leave for France, where he will formally accept an invitation for Israel to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based group of 30 developed world nations, before heading to Canada.
The Washington leg is likely to be tacked onto the end of the trip.
The offer to meet Obama is widely viewed as a US attempt to mend ties with Israel following an ugly spat over Jewish settlement activity in Jerusalem which erupted in March.
"In the course of the meeting, he (Emanuel) is expected to invite Netanyahu for a meeting with the US president in Washington at the beginning of next week, after the Israeli prime minister’s visit to Canada," the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot daily said.
"The invitation is supposed to signal that the White House and Obama are interested in turning over a new leaf in their relations with Israel," the paper added.
The visit will come ahead of a similar trip by Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, who is expected to meet Obama at some point in June, although a date has yet to be set.
Quoting unnamed Israeli officials, the Haaretz daily said Obama wanted to meet Netanyahu before Abbas to head off criticism from congressmen and US Jewish leaders.
"The White House feared the upcoming meeting with Abbas — meant to show Obama’s support for the Palestinian leader — would draw unfavorable comparisons with the disastrous March meeting with Netanyahu, thereby deepening the crisis with Israel — and sparking more criticism of Obama’s Israel policy," the paper said.
"By holding a positive meeting with Netanyahu before Abbas arrives, the administration hopes to deflect such comparisons."
Netanyahu and Obama last met in March in a meeting which lacked the normal show of mutual warmth, and was deprived of the trappings usually accorded to a visiting leader at the White House.
The frosty reception was widely viewed as an attempt to humiliate Netanyahu in the wake of a spat over settlements which erupted two weeks earlier and greatly embarrassed Vice President Joe Biden who was visiting at the time.
Simmering tensions between Israel and its biggest ally have since eased, with Netanyahu hinting last week he may offer a package of goodwill gestures to encourage the Palestinians to return to direct talks after an 18-month gap.
And last week, the House of Representatives backed plans to give Israel an extra $200 million (€166 million) in military aid to help it procure an anti-missile system to intercept short-range rockets and artillery shells of the sort that have been fired by the Islamist Hamas movement and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia in the past.
Israel and the Palestinians embarked on a round of US-brokered indirect negotiations on May 9 as Washington presses for a resumption of peace efforts.
Both Netanyahu and Abbas last week met US envoy George Mitchell as part of the proximity talks.
The last round of direct negotiations between the two sides collapsed in December 2008 when Israel launched a devastating offensive against the Gaza Strip in a bid to halt Palestinian rocket fire aimed at Israeli towns.
