Netanyahu and Trump are at odds over the war they started together

Is­rael’s lat­est strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu, who start­ed the war in lock­step, want dif­fer­ent things.

Trump had pub­licly warned Is­rael not to strike Beirut in its war with Iran-backed Hezbol­lah mil­i­tants. When it did, on Sun­day, Iran re­spond­ed by fir­ing bal­lis­tic mis­siles at Is­rael for the first time since the April cease­fire. Is­rael then struck Iran, with which Trump has been en­gaged in weeks of high-stakes ne­go­ti­a­tions.

The fight­ing has since died down, but the dif­fer­ences be­tween the two lead­ers are like­ly to per­sist.

That’s be­cause Trump, whose par­ty faces elec­tions lat­er this year, wants to wind down an un­pop­u­lar war and re­open the Strait of Hor­muz to ease gas prices. Iran says a full cease­fire in Lebanon is key to any deal.

Ne­tanyahu, who al­so faces elec­tions this year, is un­der pres­sure to stop Hezbol­lah’s at­tacks and prove that he is win­ning the war with Iran and its al­lies. He al­so needs to man­age re­la­tions with Is­rael’s most im­por­tant al­ly with­out ap­pear­ing to kow­tow to it.

Po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions push in op­po­site di­rec­tions

When the Unit­ed States and Is­rael at­tacked Iran on Feb. 28, the al­lies ap­peared shoul­der to shoul­der.

Ne­tanyahu said the goal was to de­grade the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic’s mil­i­tary, erad­i­cate its nu­clear and bal­lis­tic mis­sile pro­grams, and top­ple its gov­ern­ment. Trump an­nounced the death of Iran’s supreme leader in the open­ing bar­rage and urged Ira­ni­ans to “take back” their coun­try.

But it soon be­came clear that while Trump was seek­ing a quick win — like the one he se­cured in Venezuela — Ne­tanyahu want­ed to van­quish Iran and its al­lies, even if it re­quired an ex­tend­ed con­flict.

As Iran with­stood weeks of heavy strikes and kept the Strait of Hor­muz closed, Amer­i­cans and Is­raelis grew in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed — but for dif­fer­ent rea­sons.

In the U.S., the price of gas and oth­er goods soared as even some erst­while sup­port­ers ac­cused Trump of break­ing a cam­paign promise and plung­ing the U.S. in­to an­oth­er Mideast quag­mire. He has pushed back against those crit­ics as ris­ing anger threat­ens Re­pub­li­cans in No­vem­ber’s con­gres­sion­al elec­tions.

In Is­rael, anger grew over Ne­tanyahu’s fail­ure to se­cure a last­ing vic­to­ry in the wars sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack, which hap­pened on his watch. More than two years on, Hamas still rules part of Gaza, Hezbol­lah still fires rock­ets and Iran’s gov­ern­ment and nu­clear pro­gram re­main in­tact, de­spite heavy loss­es.

Is­rael’s bom­bard­ment of Lebanon strains re­la­tions

The col­li­sion course runs through Lebanon, where fight­ing still rages be­tween Is­rael and Hezbol­lah de­spite cease­fire an­nounce­ments.

Iran wants Lebanon in­clud­ed in any wider re­gion­al truce, a de­mand Trump seems to have ac­cept­ed in or­der to get a deal. Iran has threat­ened to at­tack Is­rael again if it keeps strik­ing Lebanon.

Is­rael is de­ter­mined to keep the the­aters sep­a­rate and con­tin­ue its cam­paign in Lebanon, where it has oc­cu­pied large swaths of the south, un­til the threat from Hezbol­lah has been elim­i­nat­ed.

The ten­sions spilled in­to the open last week, when Trump ac­knowl­edged hold­ing a tense call with Ne­tanyahu about Lebanon. He ad­mit­ted to us­ing ex­ple­tives and call­ing the Is­raeli leader “crazy,” say­ing he’d grown frus­trat­ed that Is­rael’s war on Hezbol­lah threat­ened the Iran talks.

In a se­ries of in­ter­views, Trump made clear that he was not hap­py about Is­rael’s Sun­day strike in Beirut, which came with­out warn­ing and hit a res­i­den­tial build­ing, killing two peo­ple and wound­ing 20, ac­cord­ing to Lebanese au­thor­i­ties.

He then urged re­straint from Is­rael af­ter Iran launched its first bar­rage of mis­siles lat­er that day. “I call all the shots,” not Ne­tanyahu, Trump told the Fi­nan­cial Times.

Hours lat­er, Is­rael bombed Iran.

Of­fi­cials down­play dif­fer­ences

Trump had ini­tial­ly urged re­straint in or­der to calm mar­kets and keep ne­go­ti­a­tions from falling apart, ac­cord­ing to a per­son fa­mil­iar with the U.S.-Is­rael de­lib­er­a­tions who spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty to dis­cuss the sen­si­tive con­ver­sa­tions.

Is­raeli of­fi­cials made the coun­ter­ar­gu­ment that the U.S. would not tol­er­ate at­tacks with­out a swift re­sponse. The per­son added that it was al­so un­der­stood by both sides that not re­spond­ing to the Iran­ian strikes would put Ne­tanyahu in a dif­fi­cult po­si­tion po­lit­i­cal­ly.

Ne­tanyahu has down­played any per­ceived dif­fer­ences.

Af­ter the lat­est strikes, he told re­porters in He­brew that “Is­rael has a full right to self-de­fense, and we are ex­er­cis­ing it to the ex­tent nec­es­sary.”

“I say this to you, just as I say this, with ap­pre­ci­a­tion and re­spect, in my good con­ver­sa­tions with my friend, Pres­i­dent Trump,” he added.

It’s un­clear if there will be last­ing dam­age

It’s not the first time that Trump has been pub­licly at odds with Ne­tanyahu about a mil­i­tary op­er­a­tion.

In March, less than three weeks in­to the con­flict, Trump was riled by Ne­tanyahu’s de­ci­sion to at­tack a crit­i­cal Iran­ian gas field, which prompt­ed Iran to re­tal­i­ate against en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture in the Gulf.

“I told him, ’Don’t do that,’” Trump said at the time. “We get along great. It’s co­or­di­nat­ed, but on oc­ca­sion he’ll do some­thing.”

While Trump pub­licly dis­agreed with the de­ci­sion, two peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter who were not au­tho­rized to com­ment pub­licly said the U.S. was made aware of Is­rael’s plans ahead of the at­tack.

It’s un­clear whether the lat­est dis­pute will cause last­ing dam­age.

“It’s not so un­com­mon for the U.S.-Is­rael re­la­tion­ship to have these kinds of ten­sions. What’s so dif­fer­ent right now is how pub­licly it’s play­ing out,” said Michael Singh, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor at the Wash­ing­ton In­sti­tute for Near East Pol­i­cy.

He not­ed that Trump has had sim­i­lar pub­lic spats with oth­er heads of state, in­clud­ing close al­lies.

Ey­tan Gilboa, an ex­pert on U.S.-Is­rael re­la­tions at Is­rael’s Bar-Ilan and Re­ich­man uni­ver­si­ties, said he doubt­ed the rift se­ri­ous­ly threat­ened the al­liance. He said Ne­tanyahu had been care­ful not to push things too far.

“If there was a big threat, like if Is­rael were to con­tin­ue the war in Iran and drag the U.S. in­to it, that would have been a dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tion,” he said. “But that is not hap­pen­ing.”

He not­ed, though, that there are still “ba­sic dis­agree­ments be­tween Ne­tanyahu and Trump on Iran, Lebanon and Gaza” that re­main unan­swered. —JERUSALEM (AP)

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Sto­ry by JU­LIA FRANKEL and AAMER MAD­HANI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Aamer Mad­hani re­port­ed from Wash­ing­ton. As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­porters Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Farnoush Amiri in New York con­tributed.