Trump goes after Netanyahu as he pursues deal with Iran, putting their
friendship to the test
[June 17, 2026]
By MIKE CATALINI and THOMAS BEAUMONT
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Donald Trump
last year that he was the “greatest friend Israel ever had in the White
House."
Now, as Trump tries to finalize a deal to end the war with Iran, he's
unloading on Netanyahu with rhetoric that no other American leader has
dared to use publicly.
He claimed credit for Israel's existence — “without me, there would be
no Israel” — and cursed his judgment in interviews. He even described
him as “crazy.”
Netanyahu’s tenure as prime minister spans four U.S. presidents, and
he's frustrated all of them at one point or another. But none has voiced
that as openly as Trump, who started the conflict in tandem with
Netanyahu.
The tension comes as Trump criticizes recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon,
which threatened to jeopardize negotiations between Washington and
Tehran. Trump has been pushing for a deal as he faces political blowback
at home, where the war is unpopular and has driven up gasoline prices.
“If Netanyahu gets in between something Trump really wants, and that’s
out of this war, he’s prepared to use the leverage that he has,” said
Aaron David Miller, who served as an adviser on Middle East issues to
Democratic and Republican administrations over two decades.
An agreement is scheduled to be signed on Friday in the Burgenstock
resort near the city of Luzern. Speaking on Tuesday at the annual G7
summit in France, Trump said he told Netanyahu that he's been unhappy
with his recent moves.
“Without the U.S., there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be
no Israel because no other president was willing to do what I did,”
Trump said. “I have had a great relationship with Bibi. Now Bibi has to
be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.”
There has long been a bipartisan consensus around supporting Israel in
Washington, but that has frayed in recent years. Liberals have been
increasingly outraged by Israel's treatment of Palestinians, especially
during the war in Gaza, and conservatives have questioned the importance
of longstanding American support for Israel. There are concerns about
antisemitism on the left and the right.
Trump’s latest comments drew swift criticism from left-leaning groups.
“He is framing Israel’s mere existence as contingent on him,” said Halie
Soifer, who leads the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “It’s deeply
offensive to the vast majority of Jews who care about Israel’s future.”
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris often disagreed
with Netanyahu during the war in Gaza, and sometimes they criticized him
publicly. But they were more circumspect to avoid facing accusations of
being anti-Israel.
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President Donald Trump poses for a photo with Israel's Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before he boards Air Force One at Ben
Gurion International Airport, Oct. 13, 2025, near Tel Aviv, as
Israel's President Isaac Herzog watches at left. (AP Photo/Evan
Vucci, File)
Conservative, pro-Israel groups were divided on the seriousness of
Trump’s public condemnation of Netanyahu.
Republican Jewish Coalition President Matt Brooks described Trump’s
criticism as little more than the inevitable disagreement among
family members.
Brooks dismissed that any muted criticism of Trump’s comments from
his party represented a political mixed message because Trump has
been reliably supportive of Israel as president.
“If Biden or Harris said something critical, it came from the
position of someone who was hostile toward or didn’t have the same
level of support for Israel that President Trump has,” Brooks said.
He noted the first Trump administration’s role in moving the U.S.
embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the return of
Israeli hostages from Gaza during the president’s second term, among
other acts.
Biden had criticized Netanyahu’s handling of the war in Gaza, though
Trump’s criticism of Netanyahu comes with a “tremendous reservoir of
goodwill on this issue that neither Biden nor Harris ever had.”
Pro-Israel advocate Mort Klein said Trump should have kept the
comments private, especially in light of his public praise over the
years of authoritarian leaders in Turkey, North Korea and China.
Klein, president of the conservative Zionist Organization of
America, said he worried that Trump was making the comments in
public to appeal to Israel critics “because he sees that Americans
have become more hostile toward Israel than they’ve ever been.”
“That worries me,” Klein said.
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