1. It's surely one of the photos of the year. Even of the decade. It's Netanyahu, in the Oval Office, talking on a landline phone. Following Donald Trump's instructions, the Israeli leader is apologizing to the Qatari prime minister. The US president, serious as well as unable to, holds the phone from Netanyahu, who refuses to even look at it. Semiotics doesn't lie. The message is clear. "Hey, Boo-boo; I'll call, I'll put it through to you, and you apologize because I told you so." Much has been said about the incident because it was key to everything that followed, leading up to the ceasefire in Gaza, as hopeful as it was long-awaited. Much less has been written, however, about the aesthetic detail that caught our attention from the very beginning. Why did the White House, in 2025, show this photograph only in black and white?
2. Chronology may give us a clue. On Tuesday, September 9, Israel launched an attack on Qatari territory, without prior notice to the states or anyone else. Netanyahu welcomed the attack, which killed five Hamas members. A Qatari police officer also died in the bombing. Twenty days later, on September 29, Netanyahu was invited to Washington. He met with Trump, held a joint press conference, and everything seemed to be going smoothly after a possible 21-point peace plan was announced. But, in a flash, it was leaked that during the meeting, Trump forced Netanyahu to apologize to the Qatari prime minister for the attack three weeks earlier. This is proof that the United States has the upper hand in the conflict. The fact of Netanyahu's reluctant call is hyped, but there is no proof. It wasn't until two days later, on October 1, that the White House released the now-famous photograph to the media.
3. Why is the White House leaking the snapshot? For mere propaganda. To demonstrate Trump's power, to show the world a humiliated/scolded/punished Netanyahu (choose the verb that makes you feel most comfortable), who must do what the US president tells him to. There is a before and after that photograph. Netanyahu is weakened. From then on, and after the mistake of attacking Qatar, the country where the United States has its most powerful military presence in this hot region of the world, Israel loses strength and must pay for its mistake. But beyond the geopolitical consequences that have led us to this standing peace, why did Trump's communications team serve these photographs only in black and white? The White House, so far, has offered no explanation.
4. In fact, it's not one photograph, but three. All three are very good, but none of them are signed by their author; they just say "source: White House." But I dare to predict that only one will go down in history. And precisely for that reason, they don't show it in color. History is written in black and white. They intended the photo to have an iconic and timeless dimension. Black and white confers an aura of solemnity and gravity, which is what they intended to give the event. The photographic account of the last century was almost never transmitted in color. Historical narrative has been carried out with the formality of the full range of grays and shades. The emblems of great international moments are in black and white, and Trump, hell, wanted his own. Everything seems calculated in the figure's propaganda. After this distribution of the photographs of Netanyahu's call, nothing is a whim. While it might very well be that a more Trumpian advisor than Trump, eager to score points, thought that a man with pumpkin-colored skin and a yellow tofa would attract too much attention if it were distributed in color. The man is so grotesque that there was a risk that no one would notice the phone from the humiliation.
