Trump's pressure undermines Netanyahu ahead of election

Benjamin Netanyahu has long been presented to the Israeli public as someone uniquely skilled at dealing with Donald Trump, capable of securing and maintaining the support of the American president.

However, a heated phone call this week, during which the president called the prime minister "f**king crazy," first leaked to the media and later publicly confirmed by Trump himself, laid bare the tensions that have occasionally surfaced between the two leaders.

Israeli officials, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the conversation was one of the most heated the prime minister has had with Trump. One of the officials said the leaks had hurt Netanyahu politically ahead of this year's parliamentary elections.

The American news outlet Axios first reported the conversation on Monday, saying Trump angrily confronted Netanyahu over Israeli threats to continue airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut. "Now everybody hates you. Everybody hates Israel for this," Trump was quoted as saying.

The US president told Netanyahu not to target Beirut after Iran warned that Israeli attacks in Lebanon were undermining negotiations to end the war, which began with joint US-Israeli attacks and is highly unpopular among Americans.

Netanyahu is trying to meet Trump's demands because the Israeli prime minister will need the president's support as the election approaches.

A senior Israeli official told Reuters that Netanyahu had made it clear to Trump that any pause in Israel's plans to attack Beirut would only make sense if Hezbollah stopped attacking northern Israel. Trump, the official said, was understanding of that position.

After their conversation, Trump said that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop shooting at each other, prompting accusations from Netanyahu's political opponents, as well as some in his own government, that he had ceded Israel's sovereignty to the United States.

"A complete protectorate," said opposition leader Yair Lapid, suggesting that Netanyahu had reduced Israel to the position of an American client state.

Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has clashed repeatedly with both Republican and Democratic administrations. Yet Israel remains Washington's closest ally in the Middle East.

Nimrod Goren, president of the Israeli Mitvim Institute, said that "differences are now very public," unlike in the earlier period, when they were usually resolved quietly behind closed doors.

A sudden end to the wars with Iran and Hezbollah would pose a huge problem for Netanyahu

Trump told the New York Post on Wednesday that he was "a little upset" about Netanyahu's continued attacks on Lebanon, but added: "We've worked very well together."

Trump's decision to join Israel in attacking Iran, not once but twice in a year, seemed like a major victory for Netanyahu, who for decades had urged Washington to use its military might to stop Tehran's nuclear program.

However, Trump also took a series of steps that many in Israel saw as counterproductive to the country's interests, including halting US strikes on Yemen's Iran-backed Houthis, lifting sanctions on Syrian President Ahmed al-Shari'a, and ordering a halt to Israel's 12-day war with Iran in June 2025.

While the United States and Israel launched a joint campaign against Iran in February, Israel was not directly involved in US-Iranian talks to end the war. Those talks were conducted through Pakistan, a rare mediator that has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel.

Wars with Iran and Hezbollah enjoy broad support in Israel, including among supporters of Netanyahu's political rivals, and much of the public wants the fighting to continue. This contrasts with the United States, where many voters - including members of Trump's conservative base - oppose war.

Trump has repeatedly said the US is close to a deal with Iran to end the war. Tehran insists any deal must include an end to Israeli attacks on its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“They are essentially forcing us to stop,” said Israeli pollster Mitchell Barak. “We no longer have a say in this.”

At the start of this year's war with Iran, Netanyahu said that the Iranian government would be overthrown and its nuclear and missile programs destroyed. He also said that Hezbollah, which attacked Israel in March in support of Iran, must be disarmed in southern Lebanon. So far, neither of those goals has been achieved.

Recent domestic polls have repeatedly shown that Netanyahu's coalition government, the most right-wing in the country's history, would fail to win a majority in the next election.

Netanyahu, Goren said, is trying to accommodate Trump's demands because the Israeli prime minister will need the president's support as the election approaches, including a possible visit by the American leader to Israel. Before the war with Iran, Trump was widely expected in Israel to visit the country in April to receive the country's highest civilian honor. He last visited in October.

But some Israelis were uncomfortable with the extent to which Trump seemed to be able to influence Israeli military decisions, Goren said. In contrast, in the United States, some Trump critics argue that Netanyahu has a disproportionate influence on American foreign policy.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Netanyahu's national security minister, said on Thursday that there are times when an Israeli leader must know how to say "no" even to the US president.

Nadav Strauchler, a former Netanyahu advisor, said the Israeli prime minister is counting on Trump's support in the election.

"The way the war with Iran and Hezbollah ends will affect, more than anything else, the outcome of the election."

Trump has often publicly showered Netanyahu with praise and publicly lobbied the Israeli president to pardon the prime minister, who is on trial in Israel on corruption charges.

However, Trump has also publicly emphasized how much he says Israel needs Washington, and has previously used expletives when talking about Israel, including a public statement last year that Israel and Iran "have no idea what the hell they're doing."

Netanyahu describes Trump as “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” offering the kind of public praise that pleases the Republican president, known for valuing personal loyalty and validation.

Since the US and Israel began their war with Iran, Netanyahu has occasionally said that he speaks with Trump almost daily, often presenting himself and the US president to the Israeli public as equal partners who make decisions together.

Asked about the call in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Netanyahu said that, as in the "best families," there were occasional "tactical disagreements" with the US president.

A US official told Reuters that the phone call was one of several in which the president was very direct with Netanyahu, but that the two remain friends and close allies.

"Their conversations are quite direct," the official said.

The official and another Israeli source familiar with US-Israeli relations rejected any suggestion that there had been a fundamental change in the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump.

However, an Israeli source acknowledged that the leak of the call - and Trump's subsequent confirmation of it - was of no use to Netanyahu ahead of the election, which polls show he could lose.

Strauchler, a former Netanyahu adviser, said the perception of a rift with Trump is overstated and that the two leaders appear to remain aligned on most important issues.

However, an abrupt end to the wars with Iran and Hezbollah would pose, as he said, a "huge problem" for Netanyahu, because many Israelis would perceive it as if Trump had forced him to make such a move.

"Nobody here wants to feel like we're just another star on the American flag. We want to have a sense of independence," Strauhler said.