Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been asked point blank about his bad-tempered phone call with Donald Trump earlier this week, during which the US President reportedly called him “f***ing crazy” and said “everyone hates” him.
Mr Trump was berating Mr Netanyahu for the escalating violence in Lebanon, where the Israelis are continuing to fight Hezbollah even though a ceasefire is supposed to be in effect. The US President was particularly exercised about the Prime Minister’s threats to bomb Lebanon’s capital city, Beirut.
“You’re f***ing crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” Mr Trump told him at one point, according to Axios.
At another point he simply shouted: “What the f*** are you doing?”
Donald Trump rather lost his temper on the phone call. Picture: Alex Brandon/AP
Mr Trump is worried, with some justification, that Mr Netanyahu’s escalatory actions in Lebanon will derail his attempts to reach a peace deal with Iran.
Hezbollah is an ally of the Iranian regime, which has threatened to walk away from the negotiations unless the Israelis halt their attacks. Iran has also demanded that any agreement include provisions halting the conflict in Lebanon.
Mr Netanyahu was asked about his phone call with Mr Trump during an interview with CNBC journalist Sara Eisen today.
Obviously, it was an awkward subject. He avoided discussing details of the conversation, but didn’t deny Ms Eisen’s characterisation of what the US President had said, including the quote about him being “f***ing crazy”.
“Let’s talk about the call that you had with (Trump) this week, which is getting a lot of attention. The President confirmed that he said you’re ‘effing crazy’. How did you react to that? What actually happened in that call?” Ms Eisen asked.
“Well, I’m not going to get into details of our conversations. We’ve had thousands of – well, a lot of them,” Mr Netanyahu said.
“We’ve always found a way. We have so many agreements. We agree on the main things. We want to get Iran, the nuclear program in Iran, finished. We want to make sure that Iran doesn’t pose a threat to Israel, to the Middle East, to America.
“That’s our common goal. That’s what we set out to do, and to expand the circle of peace, as the President and I did in the Abraham Accords together.”
Mr Netanyahu speaking to CNBC host Sara Eisen. Picture: CNBC
The Abraham Accords, signed during Mr Trump’s first presidency, saw a handful of countries normalise diplomatic relations with Israel.
Mr Trump has been pushing for other Middle Eastern nations, Saudi Arabia chief among them, to sign up to the accords; he’s linked the idea to his peace talks with Iran.
But the Saudis have repeatedly indicated they will only consider it once substantive steps are taken towards establishing a Palestinian state, something to which Mr Netanyahu’s government in Israel is explicitly opposed.
“Sometimes we have – as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements,” Mr Netanyahu went on to concede.
“We always find a way to work them out. And we do so as great friends. We can disagree in the morning, and by the afternoon, we have a common action.”
“I was going to say, has your relationship at all shifted with him?” Ms Eisen asked.
Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to CNBC host Sara Eisen. Picture: CNBC
“This has been a great relationship, because he’s been the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” said Mr Netanyahu.
“And he respects me. I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences.”
“Did he say that ‘you’d be in jail if not for me’?” asked Ms Eisen.
“Uh, look. I’m not going to get into the details,” said the Prime Minister.
“But he’s been very vocal about the absurdity of the fake trial that I’m going through.”
A criminal case against Mr Netanyahu, concerning allegations of corruption, has dragged on for years, with his wars against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran causing repeated delays.
He is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of luxury goods from billionaires in exchange for political favours, and of trying to wield illegal control over the news coverage of multiple Israeli media outlets.
Some critics of Mr Netanyahu have accused him of keeping Israel in perpetual conflict to avoid personal legal jeopardy. He, of course, says that is nonsense, and argues he is acting in the country’s national interest.
Mr Netanyahu. Picture: Ilia Yefimovich via Reuters
Mr Trump was also asked about the phone call, incidentally. He also didn’t deny having blown up at Mr Netanyahu.
“Axios reported that you had a phone call with Bibi Netanyahu in which you were angry with him,” Australian journalist Miranda Devine, host of The New York Post’s podcast Pod Force One, put to him.
“You said, ‘Are you effing crazy? What are you effing doing? I helped you stay out of jail.’ Is that true? Did you speak to him in those terms?”
“I did,” Mr Trump confirmed.
“I wouldn’t say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon. You know, at some point I said, ‘Bibi we’ve got to stop this, we’ve got to stop it.’
“But I have a very good relationship. We’ve done well together. He always says we could never have done it, but everybody knows that we could have never done it without the United States. But we’ve worked very well together.
“I like Bibi a lot and I’ve worked very well with him. We had where, you know, where I’m a wartime President, he’s a wartime Prime minister. Very important part of the world.
“And I think we’ve done, you know, very well.”