What is not in doubt is that there was a tense exchange last night between U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the latter’s insistence on escalating military attacks on Lebanon. Trump has pushed for a week now, that his peace deal with Iran is close, and last week he, reportedly, turned down Netanyahu’s demand to end the deal. Netanyahu proceeded to egregiously violate the terms of the truce in what Trump considered were ‘disproportionate’ attacks on Lebanon, and yesterday Iran stopped the exchange of proposals and terms via Pakistani intermediaries.
Barak Ravid, reporter for both Israel’s Channel 12 and Axios, citing the account of a U.S. official, wrote that Trump accused Netanyahu of sabotaging the talks with Iran, that Israel was destroying whole buildings to target an individual Hezbollah commander and needlessly pushing civilian casualties way up. Apparently, Netanyahu pushed back, leading Trump, according to the account of a U.S. official, to raise his voice to Netanyahu, screaming: “You’re f*ing 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 only that Trump was “pissed” and yelled at Netanyahu, “What the f* are you doing?”
After an early evening call, Trump posted on Truth Social that he had “had a conversation with Bibi Netanyahu today, asking him not to go into a major raid of Beirut, Lebanon.” He thanked Netanyahu for having “turned his troops around.” Netanyahu responded to that by saying he would strike Beirut if Hezbollah didn’t stop attacking Israel. He declared: “Our position remains the same.” Operations in southern Lebanon continue “as planned.” The second call, closer to midnight Washington time, was the occasion of the reported outbursts.
An unnamed Netanyahu staff member took issue with Channel 12’s report, denying that there any cursing or references to Netanyahu being saved from prison had occurred. The phone call was simply described as “tense.”
After the initial phone call, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the IDF would not attack Beirut and that Israel and Hezbollah would refrain from attacking each other, while Netanyahu warned later 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 TImes of Israel quoted an unnamed Israeli source on the second call: “Trump did say during the conversation that it is difficult to present Israel’s position to the world and that this fuels hostility toward it. 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.”
There was no mention of any stoppage of military or financial aid, and both Trump and Netanyahu apparently are content to have the military actions in southern Lebanon continue and another strike on Beirut contingent upon Netanyahu’s judgement of whether Hezbollah has created an incident. Such a situation does not seem likely to convince Tehran that Trump has control over the truce, that is, over Netanyahu.
