Trump's 'crazy' rebuke undercuts Netanyahu at a critical moment

Benjamin Netanyahu has long portrayed himself to the Israeli public as uniquely capable of managing Donald Trump and sustaining the U.S. president's backing.

But an acrimonious phone call this week, in which Trump called the prime minister "fucking crazy," laid bare the strains between the two leaders. The call was first leaked to the media, then publicly confirmed by Trump himself, Reuters reported.

What did Trump say to Netanyahu in the phone call?

Trump angrily confronted Netanyahu over Israeli threats to resume air strikes on Beirut's southern suburbs. U.S. website Axios, which broke the story, quoted Trump as telling Netanyahu: "Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this." Israeli officials, speaking anonymously, described it as one of the most heated calls Netanyahu has had with the U.S. president.

Israeli officials acknowledged the leak had damaged Netanyahu politically ahead of this year's national election. Trump told the New York Post on Wednesday he was "a little bit perturbed" by Netanyahu constantly attacking Lebanon, but added: "We've worked very well together." Trump had told Netanyahu not to target Beirut after Iran warned that Israeli strikes in Lebanon were undermining negotiations to end the war.

How did Netanyahu respond to Trump's rebuke?

A senior Israeli official said Netanyahu 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 that position, the official said. Following the call, Trump announced that Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop shooting each other.

The announcement drew accusations from Netanyahu's political opponents, and some within his own government, that he had ceded Israeli sovereignty to Washington. Opposition leader Yair Lapid called it "a total protectorate," suggesting Netanyahu had reduced Israel to an American client state. Netanyahu, Israel's longest-serving prime minister, has repeatedly clashed with both Republican and Democratic administrations, yet Israel has remained Washington's closest Middle East ally.

Nimrod Goren, president of Israeli think tank Mitvim, said the differences between the two leaders were "now very public," unlike in the past when they were managed quietly behind closed doors.

How has the Trump-Netanyahu relationship shaped the war?

Trump's decision to join Israel in striking Iran twice in the space of a year appeared to mark a major victory for Netanyahu, who had spent decades urging Washington to use military force against Tehran's nuclear program. But Trump has also taken steps many in Israel viewed as working against its interests. Those include ending U.S. strikes on Yemen's 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.

While the U.S. and Israel jointly launched the campaign against Iran in February, Israel has not been directly involved in U.S.-Iran peace talks. Those negotiations have been conducted through Pakistan, a rare intermediary with no formal diplomatic ties with Israel. The wars with Iran and Hezbollah have remained widely popular inside Israel, even among supporters of Netanyahu's rivals, with much of the public wanting the fighting to continue.

That stands in contrast to the United States, where many voters, including members of Trump's conservative base, oppose the war. Israeli pollster Mitchell Barak said: "We are basically being forced to stop. We don't have a say in this anymore."

What does the rift mean for Netanyahu's election prospects?

Recent polls have consistently shown Netanyahu's coalition government, the most right-wing in Israel's history, would fail to win a majority at the next election. Goren said Netanyahu was working to accommodate Trump's demands because he would need the president's support closer to the vote, including a possible visit to Israel by Trump. Before the Iran war, Trump had been widely expected to visit Israel in April to receive the country's highest civilian honour.

Nadav Strauchler, a former Netanyahu adviser, said the Israeli premier was counting on Trump's support in the election. "The way the war will end will affect, more than anything, the result of the election," he said. Strauchler added that the perception of a rift with Trump was overstated and that the two leaders remained aligned on most major issues.

Is the Trump-Netanyahu relationship fundamentally at risk?

A U.S. official told Reuters the phone call was one of several in which Trump had been direct with Netanyahu, but that the two remained friends and close allies. "Their conversations are pretty direct," the official said. A second source briefed on the relationship dismissed any suggestion of a material change between the two leaders.

Netanyahu himself, asked about the call in a CNBC interview, compared the situation to disagreements within the "best of families," describing them as "tactical disagreements." He has publicly called Trump "the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House." Trump, for his part, has lavished public praise on Netanyahu and lobbied Israel's president to pardon the prime minister, who faces trial on corruption-related charges.

But Strauchler warned that an abrupt end to the wars with Iran and Hezbollah would pose a "huge problem" for Netanyahu, as many Israelis would see it as Trump having forced his hand. "No one wants here to feel like we are another star on the U.S. flag. We want to feel independence," he said.