Did Donald Trump scream expletives at Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday? Did Bibi back down? Just how bad did it get between the two friends who seemed on the brink of remaking the Middle East two months ago?
While there's some dispute about how specifically bad the call went, the fact that the split broke out into the open is the worst aspect of the exchange.
Late yesterday, Axios' Barak Ravid and Marc Caputo – who have provided reliable reporting on US-Israeli interactions – broke the news that Trump had exploded at Netanyahu over his plans to attack Hezbollah in Beirut. According to the summary of the conversation from a "US official," Trump accused Netanyahu of being "f***ing crazy" and ungrateful for Trump's efforts to keep Bibi out of jail:
Why it matters: Earlier on Monday, Iran threatened to abandon the negotiations with the U.S. over Israel's actions in Lebanon. On the call, Trump called Netanyahu "crazy" and accused him of ingratitude, according to two of the sources. He also put the brakes on Israel's plan to strike Beirut.
Behind the scenes: One U.S. official said Trump told Netanyahu that following through on his threats to bomb the Lebanese capital would further isolate Israel around the world.
- Two of the sources said Trump claimed he'd helped keep Netanyahu out of jail — a reference to his support during Netanyahu's corruption trial.
- Summarizing Trump's remarks to Netanyahu, the U.S. official said: "You're fucking crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this."
- A second source briefed on the call said Trump was "pissed" and at one point yelled at Netanyahu: "What the fuck are you doing?"
Yikes.
The framing of this raises a question as to whether these are direct quotes from the conversation, or whether this is the official's "summary" of the content. The last bullet point is a quote, clearly, but the preceding bullet point – which made headlines – is apparently a summary of the content of the call. None of this indicates a friendly chat between close allies, which is the real story, and to which we'll return in a moment.
The distinction matters to some extent. The Israelis deny that the call got profane, although they do admit the conversation was tense. Also, the conversation took place over two calls, and the tension came from Israeli objections to the White House's spin on the first conversation:
The Tuesday report clarified that two calls took place between the leaders on Monday night, one at 7 p.m. Israel time and one close to midnight — the latter being the more tense call.
After the initial phone call, while Trump wrote on Truth Social that the IDF would not attack Beirut and that Israel and Hezbollah would refrain from attacking each other, Netanyahu warned that he would carry out his previous plans to strike Beirut if Hezbollah did not halt its attacks on northern Israel, and that Israel’s expanded offensive in southern Lebanon would continue.
The second phone call focused on mutual complaints by the two leaders regarding their respective readouts of the first call, according to the Channel 12 report, with Trump upset that Netanyahu had implied that, aside from postponing strikes in Beirut, the war was continuing at full intensity, and Netanyahu frustrated that Trump’s post implied that Israel had ceased fire on all fronts.
However, the Israeli source denied that Trump cursed at or personally attacked Netanyahu, claimed to be protecting him from going to prison, or stated that the premier and Israel are hated around the world. “Trump did say during the second conversation that it is difficult to present Israel’s position to the world and that this fuels hostility toward it,” the Israeli source was reported saying. “The conversation ended with understandings according to which Israel would refrain from carrying out the postponed strike in Beirut, provided that it is not attacked within its own territory,” the source said.
In other words, the Israelis claim that the 'summary' in that second bullet point is entirely false. That makes it sound as though the "US official" was engaged in some axe-grinding rather than transcription of the call. Either way, though, it's pretty clear that the sources talking to Axios believe that the US controls Israel rather than the other way around, and that the US should be in charge of Israeli policy in this instance. That in itself may be valuable for debunking the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on the Left and on the fringes of the Right, too.
Which version of the call is the more accurate? Not long after the second call, Trump posted this to Truth Social:
I had a conversation with Bibi Netanyahu today, asking him not to go into a major raid of Beirut, Lebanon. He turned his Troops around. Thank you Bibi! I also had a conversation with Representatives of the Leaders of Hezbollah, and they agreed to stop shooting at Israel, and its soldiers. Likewise, Israel agreed to stop shooting at them. Let’s see how long that lasts — Hopefully it will be for ETERNITY! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Trump posted this five hours after his first call to Netanyahu. Trump credited Netanyahu with the cessation, and then with Hezbollah for agreeing to it, with a qualifier: "Let's see how long that lasts." As it turns out ... not long at all:
Israel and Lebanon were set to hold a fresh round of talks on Tuesday, as Hezbollah continued to target Israeli troops in Lebanon and fresh IDF strikes were reported, despite indications from US President Donald Trump that Washington had brokered a truce between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group. ...
Despite the planned talks and the declared truce, Hezbollah appeared to continue its attacks on Tuesday morning, when sirens were triggered in the northern city of Kiryat Shmona and nearby border communities by a suspected drone over an area of southern Lebanon where troops were operating. A short time later the military said the incident had ended without injuries.
Overnight, the IDF said it had intercepted two Hezbollah rockets fired toward Safed, while an apparent Hezbollah drone struck a military position in the Western Galilee, close to the border with Lebanon. There were no injuries in either of those incidents.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said Israel conducted fresh airstrikes on south Lebanon on Tuesday morning.
Welcome to the Hezbollah version of the Hokey Pokey. This is the same dance perfected by Hamas, and by Iran's regime as well. They do not negotiate in good faith, they do not adhere to agreements, and they use splits between allies with the effectiveness of narcissistic teenagers who find cracks in parental fronts on discipline.
That is what makes this story so bad, no matter what words were used in this conversation. Neither the US nor Israel can afford to let Iran split this coalition, especially at this stage. Trump seems to want a deal with Iran more than he wants an actual end to terrorism against the Israelis, and the Iranians are taking that as a lesson every day of the so-called ceasefire already. Letting White House aides leak this story to the press unnecessarily exposes a split between the two allies that the Islamists are already all too eager to exploit. Whatever momentary political benefit comes from this leak will be paid for in blood if and when the IRGC succeeds in exploiting it to get the diplomatic escape it desperately seeks. Hezbollah's offensive in Lebanon is designed to produce this very result, and if the White House can't see that, then Netanyahu has every reason to start acting on his own to end the threat on his northern border the best he can.
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