Jerusalem/Washington: Benjamin Netanyahu has long portrayed himself to the Israeli public as being uniquely adept in dealing with Donald Trump, capable of winning and sustaining the U.S. president’s backing.
But an acrimonious phone call this week where the president called the prime minister “fucking crazy”, first leaked to the media and later publicly confirmed by Trump himself, laid bare the strains that have at times emerged between the two leaders.
Israeli officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, acknowledged the call was among the most heated the premier has had with Trump. One of the officials said the leak had damaged Netanyahu politically ahead of this year’s national election.
Also Read: Trump confirms he called Netanyahu ‘crazy,’ as he says Israel is complicating peace talks with Iran
The U.S. website Axios broke news of the call on Monday, saying Trump had angrily confronted Netanyahu over Israeli threats to resume air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs. “Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” Trump was quoted as saying.
The U.S. president told Netanyahu not to target Beirut after Iran had warned that Israeli strikes in Lebanon were undermining talks to end the war, which began with joint U.S.-Israeli attacks and which is deeply unpopular among Americans.
US-ISRAEL DIFFERENCES ‘NOW VERY PUBLIC’, SAYS THINK-TANK HEAD A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Netanyahu had made clear to Trump that any pause in Israeli plans to strike Beirut would only work if Hezbollah stopped hitting northern Israel. Trump was receptive to this position, the official said.
Following their call, Trump said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop shooting each other, prompting accusations by Netanyahu’s political opponents, and some within his own government, that he had ceded Israel’s sovereignty to the U.S.
“A total protectorate,” said opposition leader Yair Lapid, suggesting Netanyahu had put Israel in the position of an American client state.
Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, has repeatedly clashed with Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet, Israel has remained Washington’s closest Middle East ally.
Nimrod Goren, the president of Mitvim, an Israeli think tank, said “the differences are now very public”, unlike in the past when they were usually quietly managed behind closed doors.
Also Read: Netanyahu downplays row with Trump, says both agree on disarming Hezbollah
Trump told the New York Post on Wednesday that he was “a little bit perturbed” by Netanyahu constantly attacking Lebanon, but added: “We’ve worked very well together.”
Trump’s decision to join Israel in striking Iran, not once but twice in the space of a year, appeared to mark a major victory for Netanyahu, who had spent decades urging Washington to use its military power to halt Tehran’s nuclear programme.
But Trump has also taken a series of steps that many in Israel have viewed as cutting against the country’s interests, including ending U.S. strikes on Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis, lifting sanctions on Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa, and ordering a halt to Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in June 2025.
ISRAEL NOT DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN US-IRAN PEACE TALKS And while the United States and Israel jointly launched the campaign against Iran in February, Israel has not been directly involved in the U.S.-Iran talks to end the war. Those negotiations have been conducted through Pakistan, a rare intermediary that has no formal diplomatic ties with Israel.
The wars with Iran and Hezbollah have been widely popular in Israel, including among supporters of Netanyahu’s political rivals, and much of the public wants the fighting to continue.
That stands in contrast to the U.S., where many voters -including members of Trump’s conservative base – oppose the war.
Trump has repeatedly said that the U.S. was close to an agreement with Iran on ending the war.
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