{"id":406638,"date":"2026-04-23T10:30:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/406638\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:30:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:30:26","slug":"repeatedly-deferring-to-trump-netanyahu-subjects-israeli-security-to-us-presidents-whim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/406638\/","title":{"rendered":"Repeatedly deferring to Trump, Netanyahu subjects Israeli security to US president’s whim"},"content":{"rendered":"

On June 18, 2021, Benjamin Netanyahu walked to the podium of the Knesset.<\/p>\n

He was in an unfamiliar position, one that he hadn\u2019t been in for over a decade \u2014 the loser of a national election.<\/p>\n

Suddenly the outgoing prime minister, Netanyahu delivered a 30-minute address in which he bitterly lambasted<\/a> his successor Naftali Bennett and vowed to return to power quickly.<\/p>\n

He also boasted of his willingness to stand up to then-US president Joe Biden on Iran, arguing that the incoming government wouldn\u2019t have the courage to follow his lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I have to choose between tension between us and eliminating the existential threat to Israel, then eliminating the threat takes precedence,\u201d he said. \u201cAn Israeli prime minister must be able to say \u2018No\u2019 to the president of the United States on matters that endanger our existence.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It was a reasonable statement, and one that almost every Israeli would agree with.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tIsrael\u2019s outgoing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a Knesset session in Jerusalem, Sunday, June 13, 2021. (AP Photo\/Ariel Schali22<\/p>\n

A year and a half later, Netanyahu returned to power, and indeed showed himself capable of standing up to Biden, especially around the war against Hamas in Gaza.<\/p>\n

But once Donald Trump reclaimed his old Oval Office perch, the same Netanyahu who had crowed about his willingness to stand up to the White House seemed to make the strategic decision to acquiesce to the US president\u2019s demands, whatever they are.<\/p>\n

It made sense in many ways. Besides the fact that Trump famously expects loyalty and is willing to exact revenge on those he sees as crossing him, an airtight partnership had much to offer.<\/p>\n

In his first term, Trump handed Israel unprecedented diplomatic wins \u2014 moving the embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing Israel\u2019s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, pulling out of hostile international bodies, and much more.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) with US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman at the official opening ceremony of the US embassy in Jerusalem on May 14, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

In his second term, the partnership with Trump has reaped important benefits for Israel and for Netanyahu personally. Hamas released all the hostages, and the world at least expects the terror group to follow a plan that would see it disarm. Trump overturned Biden\u2019s restrictions on weapons shipments to Israel. He invited Netanyahu repeatedly to Washington and Mar-a-Lago, and came to Jerusalem to address the Knesset the day the last living hostages were released.<\/p>\n

In June, Trump eventually joined Israel\u2019s military campaign against Iran, giving Israel the firepower it needed to reach deeply buried nuclear sites and then declaring the war over. And then in February, he took the unprecedented step of partnering the US with Israel in the launch of a new round of fighting against the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

No \u2018No\u2019<\/p>\n

Yet that has come with a significant price tag. Throughout, Trump has expected Netanyahu to get in line with his plans, and the prime minister has done so.<\/p>\n

Before he was even elected,\u00a0Trump was pushing<\/a>\u00a0Netanyahu for a truce in Gaza and talks on ending the war. After a \u201ctense\u201d meeting<\/a> with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff days before Trump entered office in January, Netanyahu gave the soon-to-be US president the ceasefire he sought.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, meets with US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff at his office in Jerusalem on July 31, 2025. (Kobi Gideon\/GPO)<\/p>\n

Trump, along with Qatar, also engineered the end of Israel\u2019s June 2025 campaign against Iran. After Trump had the US\u00a0 join in with strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, he called<\/a> Netanyahu to tell him that there would be no further American attacks, and that it was time to end the war.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu wasn\u2019t thrilled \u2014 but didn\u2019t say no. His displeasure was evident after Trump announced the ceasefire, as he waited eight hours before confirming that Israel had accepted the truce as well.<\/p>\n

When Iran fired a missile at Israel in violation of the ceasefire, Netanyahu ordered a massive Israeli response, but Trump memorably shut that down<\/a> as well, and didn\u2019t keep it quiet, making sure the world knew who was really in charge.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tUS President Donald Trump walks to board Marine One, after speaking to reporters, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on June 24, 2025. (Mandel NGAN \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not happy that Israel\u2019s going out now,\u201d the US president told reporters outside the White House on June 24. \u201cThere was one rocket that I guess was fired overboard [by Iran]. It was after the time limit, and it missed its target. And now Israel\u2019s going out. These guys gotta calm down. Ridiculous\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

From Air Force One, Trump then called<\/a> Netanyahu to tell him directly to turn his planes around.<\/p>\n

And he didn\u2019t stop there, publicly warning Netanyahu in an all-caps Truth Social post: \u201cISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBs,\u201d he wrote.\u00a0 IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!\u201d<\/p>\n

Unwilling to defy Trump, Netanyahu scaled the attack back, making do with a symbolic response instead.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tAn Israeli Air Force pilot boards a fighter jet departing for strikes in Iran, early June 13, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)<\/p>\n

Trump has pressed Netanyahu into backing down on a range of other matters as well: West Bank annexation<\/a>, talks<\/a> with Syria\u2019s new government, senior Qatari and Turkish representation<\/a> on the Board of Peace, giving up plans<\/a> to get Gazans to emigrate, apologizing<\/a> to Qatar\u2019s emir for a failed strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, and even accepting<\/a> the terms of the October 2025 Gaza ceasefire that envisions Hamas disarming in stages.<\/p>\n

And in the past two weeks, facing archenemy Iran and its proxy Hezbollah, the most dangerous terrorist force on Israel\u2019s northern border, Netanyahu went along begrudgingly with ceasefires that Trump demanded.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tUS Vice President JD Vance, center, walks with Pakistan\u2019s Chief of Defense Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshall Asim Munir, left, and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar after arriving for talks with Iranian officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, April 11, 2026. (AP\/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)<\/p>\n

Israel wasn\u2019t part of Pakistani-mediated contacts between the US and Iran to reach a two-week ceasefire.<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s decision to halt the fighting was, in fact, a rejection of Netanyahu\u2019s unsuccessful lobbying against pausing or ending the war yet. But soon after it was announced, Netanyahu\u2019s office conceded in a statement released only in English that \u201cIsrael supports President Trump\u2019s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals, shared by the US, Israel and Israel\u2019s regional allies, in the upcoming negotiations,\u201d the statement continued.<\/p>\n

Israel stressed that the ceasefire \u201cdoes not include Lebanon,\u201d though according to Iran and Pakistan, the agreement very much did.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tTroops operate in southern Lebanon, in a handout photo issued by the military on April 16, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)<\/p>\n

But then the guns quieted in Lebanon as well. Netanyahu had a \u201ctense\u201d phone call<\/a> with Trump in which the US president pushed the Israeli leader to scale back attacks on Hezbollah and accept direct peace talks with the Lebanese government.<\/p>\n

Days later, Israel agreed to a 10-day ceasefire with Hezbollah, a move which apparently also came at the behest of Trump, who was the one to announce the cessation. Residents of Israel\u2019s north, who\u2019d been battered by Hezbollah\u2019s missiles, and Netanyahu\u2019s political allies both reacted furiously<\/a> to the idea that the US president\u2019s coaxing trumped their arguments for continuing the fight.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tGadi Eisenkot attends a conference at the Academic College in Tel Aviv, January 6, 2026. (Avshalom Sassoni\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that it is the president of the United States who is the one announcing a ceasefire only highlights how disconnected the prime minister of Israel is from the people, and from the reality of the residents of the north,\u201d said Metula Mayor David Azoulay. \u201cYour basic duty as prime minister of Israel is to provide security to the citizens of the state. In practice, you fail at this time after time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Five years after Netanyahu\u2019s June 2021 Knesset speech, he is now the one being pilloried for being unable to stand up to a US president when needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cA pattern is developing where a ceasefire is being forced upon us,\u201d said Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot, a former head of the Israel Defense Forces. \u201cIn Gaza, in Iran, and now in Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

The price of friendship<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, with the two-week truce in the Iran war set to expire, Trump announced that it would be extended to give Iran time to mount a proposal for ending the war, saying the leadership in Tehran was too fractured to put one together.<\/p>\n

The announcement was an about-face for a president who had insisted that there would be no extensions, and undercut claims being telegraphed from both Israel and the US that the bombing campaign was ready to resume.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIranian walks past a giant billboard reading \u201cThe Strait of Hormuz remains closed,\u201d at Revolution Square in Tehran on April 22, 2026. (Atta Kenare\/AFP)<\/p>\n

Netanyahu may not be willing to challenge Trump, but Iran certainly is. After securing a ceasefire extension by refusing to even show up for talks being led by no less than US Vice President JD Vance, it then seized container ships trying to traverse the Strait of Hormuz, which Trump has insisted it reopen to free trade.<\/p>\n

The White House\u2019s response \u2014 that the ceasefire does not prohibit Iran from blocking the strait to ships other than those from the US or Israel \u2014 shows the extent to which Trump is unwilling to resume fighting.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu\u2019s decision to hitch Israel\u2019s future to Trump means Israel\u2019s security is no longer in its own hands. Instead, it has been outsourced to a US president whose ability to see strategies through to completion is very much in question.<\/p>\n

Trump has a willingness to break convention on the use of US military might. Netanyahu\u2019s ability to keep himself and Israel in the mercurial American president\u2019s good graces has been key in boosting Israel\u2019s own military reach.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIsraeli Air Force fighter jet seen in the skies above central Israel amid the ongoing war, April 7, 2026 (Nati Shohat\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

But Israel\u2019s military power has also been put in check by Trump, who seems to believe that reaching formal ceasefires solves complex problems and has refused to tear them up even when their terms are publicly flouted by adversaries.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s leverage at the negotiating table is diluted by Trump\u2019s decision to put talks in the hands of dilettante diplomats like Witkoff, who are easily swayed by empty promises.<\/p>\n

Trump has become famous for losing interest in campaigns beyond a few weeks, looking for premature off-ramps that enemies see as the path to survival and rehabilitation. TACO, or Trump Always Chickens Out, has become a guiding principle for anyone going up against him. Anyone, that is, but Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tA police officer walks past a billboard for the US-Iran talks in Islamabad on April 11, 2026 (Aamir QURESHI \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

As the Islamic Republic thumbs its nose at Trump, refusing to open the strait or even show up to talks with the US vice president, he repeatedly extends deadlines and undermines the credibility of his threats \u2014 while placing his trust, and Israel\u2019s security, in the hands of Pakistani leaders with long-standing ties to the Taliban and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, meanwhile, is left trying to sell unfinished wars to the public, promising that Israel will resume fighting on every front if the other side refuses to accept defeat at the negotiating table.<\/p>\n

But until he can show the Israeli public that he is a prime minister who is brave enough to say \u201cNo\u201d to Trump \u2014 and deal with the potential fallout \u2014 making good on such promises may remain out of his hands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On June 18, 2021, Benjamin Netanyahu walked to the podium of the Knesset. He was in an unfamiliar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406639,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[190560,190507,49,85,46,53,43,192169],"class_list":{"0":"post-406638","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-2026-israel-hezbollah-conflict","9":"tag-2026-us-israel-war-with-iran","10":"tag-benjamin-netanyahu","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-israel-us-relations","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-trumps-2nd-administration"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}