The G7 summit in Evian, France, put flaring tensions between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on full display as the U.S. rapidly advances to end the war in Iran.
Trump and Netanyahu jointly launched the Feb. 28 strikes on Tehran that began the war but are now on different tracks over how the conflict should end. While at the G7, the president bluntly criticized Israel’s handling of the battle against Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group, in Lebanon.
“Without us, without the United States, there would be no Israel,” Trump said Tuesday during a bilateral meeting with Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani of Qatar. “Without me, there would be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did. I’ve had a great relationship with Bibi, but now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon.”
He also added that he was “not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves,” a likely reference to last weekend’s Israeli attack on a Beirut suburb, which nearly toppled the negotiations between Tehran and the U.S. The Israeli military said the strikes were retaliatory for firing toward northern Israel.
Although the full details of the memorandum of understanding have not been released to the public, the preliminary 60-day ceasefire is expected to include Israel’s withdrawal of forces from Lebanon, which Israel opposes.
Netanyahu defiantly said the “struggle has not ended” during a Monday address to Israelis. The Israeli prime minister is up for reelection in the fall, but his support has fallen since the Iran war began. The MOU terms, which would leave Iran intact and with possible access to frozen financial assets, are not likely to help the prime minister’s campaign.
Trump, a strong ally of Netanyahu, was willing to criticize the prime minister publicly at the G7, a sign of the growing fractures in their relationship.
“I’ll tell you what, Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,” Trump said. “And you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.
“And I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah, because to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it.”
Even before heading to the G7, Trump had reportedly criticized Netanyahu in interviews with Axios and the New York Times.
“He’s a very difficult guy,” Trump told the New York Times on Sunday about Netanyahu. “And to be honest with you, he should be very thankful to us for doing this. Because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn’t be around for two hours.”
The president echoed those remarks on Tuesday, telling reporters that “Israel would have been blown up a long time ago had I not gotten involved.”
After Israel’s weekend attack in Beirut, Trump told Axios he “was so pissed off” by Netanyahu’s stunt.
“I let him know, he has no f***ing judgment,” Trump also said. “I let him know that.”
Despite the frustrations with Israel, Trump sounded confident that the MOU with Iran would survive.
TRUMP SAYS HE HAD A ‘VERY GOOD MEETING’ WITH ZELENSKY AT G7
“It can, and here I consider that the minor war, Iran’s the big one,” Trump told reporters on whether the deal would continue if Israel continues to attack Lebanon.
Vice President JD Vance is among the representatives from the White House who will travel to Geneva on Friday for the in-person signing of the MOU.
