Nournews: U.S. President Donald Trump’s meeting on Thursday with Haredi Jewish leaders, described as the first gathering of its kind at the White House in decades, might at first glance appear to be an ordinary religious and social meeting. But the presence of leaders from Satmar, a movement that opposes Zionism on religious grounds, gives the encounter a significance beyond a ceremonial event.

In the Oval Office, Trump hosted Jewish leaders who emphasized an important distinction: being Jewish does not necessarily mean being a Zionist.

The significance of that image becomes clearer when viewed alongside recent developments in the Iran war. The Pentagon has announced that “Operation Epic Fury” ended on May 5 and instructed military personnel and officials not to use the name for future clashes, instead adopting the more neutral term “Overseas Contingency Operations in the CENTCOM Area of Responsibility.”

The renaming, coming as military tensions continue, does not appear to be merely an administrative adjustment. “Epic Fury” evoked a major, offensive and victorious military operation, whereas the new terminology reduces the conflict from a clearly defined “operation” with a distinct identity to a series of “overseas activities.” It is as if the war is still unfolding on the ground, while Washington is beginning to distance itself from its name and political identity.

This shift has coincided with changes in the rhetoric of senior Trump administration officials. J.D. Vance, in recent remarks, has even appeared reluctant to use the word “war” to describe the current situation.

But why are these developments unfolding now?

The answer may lie in November.

The U.S. midterm elections are approaching, and the Iran war could become one of the most politically costly issues for Republicans. Recent reports have pointed to concerns among Trump’s advisers about the electoral consequences of the conflict—a concern that could intensify as rising energy costs put additional pressure on Americans’ everyday lives.

Public opinion is not sending an encouraging signal to the White House either. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll indicates that only about one-quarter of Americans consider the Iran war worthwhile.

Trump therefore faces a political dilemma: continuing the war carries a cost, while ending it could be portrayed as a retreat or defeat.

The solution could be to change the narrative.

Trump does not necessarily have to declare that the war was a mistake. He could simply present himself as the president who “won and then ended the war.” To construct such a narrative, the war itself must first be moved out of the center of the president’s political image: the operation’s name must change, the word “war” must be used less frequently, and the administration’s rhetoric must downplay responsibility for the continuation of the conflict.

Within this framework, the meeting with anti-Zionist Jews could be another piece of the puzzle.

The meeting alone does not prove that Trump is moving in an anti-war or anti-Zionist direction. Satmar leaders also focus on the internal affairs of the Haredi community, and their meeting with Trump does not necessarily have a direct connection to the Iran war. But in politics, images carry messages of their own.

An image of Trump standing alongside Jews who explicitly say they do not represent Zionism—as an ideology whose political structure has been a principal partner of Trump in initiating and continuing the war—could help break down a particular binary: that opposing the war does not necessarily mean opposing Jews, and that supporting peace does not necessarily mean an American retreat.

From this perspective, Trump may be constructing a new image for the electoral phase ahead: a president who did not start the war but managed it; a leader who is not pro-war but chooses peace at the right moment; and a president who was not defeated but simply decided to bring the conflict to an end.

This could be described as an “electoral exit from war.”

Yet there is one stubborn reality that cannot be erased by renaming an operation or changing political rhetoric: the cost of war is real. Fuel prices, inflation, pressure on the federal budget, American military casualties and fears of a wider conflict cannot be eliminated by changing the terminology.

That is why Trump’s most important battle in the coming months may not be on the battlefield, but in the battle over the narrative.

He can abandon the name “Epic Fury.” He can stop using the word “war.” He can sit alongside non-Zionist Jewish leaders and present a different image of himself. But if the ultimate goal is to shed the political burden of the war before November and construct an anti-war image, the American voter may have one simple question:

Who paid the price for this war?

And that is where a bitter electoral irony may emerge:

Trump may try to take the war out of politics before the election—but Americans may take the war with them to the ballot box.

At that point, it may no longer matter what the Pentagon called the war, what terminology the White House used, or which rabbi Trump stood beside for a photograph. The American voter may ultimately write their own name for Trump’s war record—and that name is unlikely to be one Trump will welcome.