{"id":498832,"date":"2026-06-18T10:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/498832\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T10:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T10:09:12","slug":"trumps-unfiltered-commentary-on-lebanon-is-leaving-israel-with-an-impossible-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/498832\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s unfiltered commentary on Lebanon is leaving Israel with an impossible choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than two years now, Israel\u2019s growing number of critics abroad have condemned it for what they allege is a reckless and indiscriminate war \u2014 with some charging genocide \u2014 that has seen tens of thousands killed in Gaza as well as expanding to Lebanon and several other fronts.<\/p>\n

At the same time, some \u2014 mostly within Israel, particularly on the right \u2014 have leveled the opposite critique: Israel has been too timid, too deliberate when fighting terror groups sworn to its destruction. It needs to just finish the job.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump managed to make both of those arguments simultaneously.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael is fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,\u201d Trump said at the G7 conference of global leaders in France. \u201cAnd you don\u2019t have to knock down an apartment house every time you\u2019re looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses. And they\u2019re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then, minutes later: \u201cI\u2019m not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah. They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Trump followed that up with another somewhat ambiguous statement about Israel and Lebanon on Wednesday, saying<\/a> he did not want Israel\u2019s fight against Hezbollah to end. \u201cI want Israel to be able to protect themself, but I do want them to use good judgment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

One could imagine Israel\u2019s top military strategists watching Trump from a secure room in Tel Aviv, smacking their foreheads and exclaiming: \u201cGood judgment! Defeat our adversary quickly with minimal civilian casualties! Why didn\u2019t we think of that?\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, the US president did put forward a solution of his own to the Lebanon morass: pulling Israel out of the fight against Hezbollah and subcontracting it to Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Islamist president of Syria.<\/p>\n

In typical Trumpian fashion, the idea is so far outside the box as to be intriguing, but unlikely to happen. What is clear from the US president\u2019s latest stream of consciousness, however, is that Israel now finds itself in an impossible spot.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tA man collects personal belongings from his house in front of a destroyed building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike, in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo\/Mohammed Zaatari)<\/p>\n

Most Israelis, polls show, recognize the need to disarm Hezbollah, an Iranian terror proxy that amassed an army on the border and has rained missiles on northern Israel throughout much of the past two and a half years. And analysts say the only way to do so is through a combination of military and diplomatic pressure \u2014 depleting the terror group on the ground while shoring up the Lebanese government in its stead.<\/p>\n

But the signed memorandum of understanding<\/a> between the US and Iran, which claims to speak for the US\u2019s allies (i.e., Israel), declares an end to fighting in Lebanon, indicating the US no longer supports Israeli military action against Hezbollah. Trump made as much clear in his comments to the G7, describing the Lebanon conflict as a sideshow that should not distract from the talks with Iran.<\/p>\n

\u2018What do we want to happen?\u2019<\/p>\n

Soon, Israel may be forced to choose: Either keep up the military pressure and lose Trump\u2019s diplomatic support, or stay on his good side \u2014 but only by ending, or scaling back, the conflict that many see as the country\u2019s most urgent fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump is not in the business of these prolonged wars, forever wars,\u201d Ksenia Svetlova, executive director of the Regional Organization for Peace, Economics and Security, told The Times of Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s goal is no war in Lebanon, and consequently no war with Iran, because Iran ties these two things together,\u201d she added. \u201cBut the goal that is important to Israel \u2014 and to I think all of the Israelis, who understand that we cannot continue the way it is \u2014 this goal is not achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIDF troops of the 36th Division operate in southern Lebanon, in a handout photo published on June 11, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)<\/p>\n

At present, Israel is proceeding on the diplomatic and military tracks simultaneously. Fighting in Lebanon continued on Wednesday, with one IDF soldier killed<\/a> and 12 injured. And Israel has held several rounds of direct talks in Washington, DC, with Lebanese officials, which are reportedly close to yielding a deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But both Svetlova and Dan Naor, an expert in Middle Eastern studies at Ariel University whose research focuses on Lebanon, did not put much stock in those negotiations, as historic as they have been.<\/p>\n

Svetlova called them \u201cdiscussions for the sake of the discussions.\u201d Naor said that the fact of the direct talks is a symbolic victory over Hezbollah, which staunchly opposes negotiations with Israel, but that they were unlikely to yield significant progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Lebanese and the Israelis are broadcasting on different frequencies,\u201d Naor told The Times of Israel. \u201cThat is, the Lebanese are talking about a nonbelligerency agreement and not a peace agreement. And I don\u2019t know how much that will work. Certainly not now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tFormer MK Ksenia Svetlova, an expert on the Middle East and Russia. (courtesy)<\/p>\n

What Naor does suggest is that the military pressure be combined with diplomatic and financial support for Lebanon\u2019s government from the US, the Gulf states and Saudi Arabia in particular.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf [the US] wants a Lebanese state without Hezbollah, they need Israeli military pressure to continue,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has to come jointly. Because by itself, it won\u2019t help, but it could be good if it comes along with collaborative efforts, external and internal.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear, however, how much those Arab states would be willing to play ball with a continued Israeli military offensive. In Svetlova\u2019s read, Trump\u2019s comments at the G7 were channeling the Saudi perspective, which wants to see the Lebanon fighting stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is pressure that he is feeling from Arab partners of his, specifically Saudi Arabia,\u201d she said. \u201cI think that the data about the high number of casualties, this is coming from the Saudis, who are very deeply involved in the attempts to achieve a permanent ceasefire in Lebanon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tThis handout photograph released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on November 10, 2025, shows US President Donald Trump (L) shaking hands with Syria\u2019s President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House in Washington, DC. (Handout \/ SANA \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Also unlikely to get involved is Trump\u2019s preferred candidate, Syria. While Syrian forces used to occupy Lebanon, and Hezbollah was a chief ally of the Bashar al-Assad regime that Sharaa\u2019s forces deposed, the Syrian president is focused on rebuilding his country after more than a decade of civil war, along with securing domestic and international legitimacy. He has little reason to insert his military, which is weaker than Israel\u2019s, in what could be a decades-long quagmire, and reports have said that the Syrian, Israeli and Lebanese leaderships are all opposed to this solution.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do not see Syria intervening in Lebanon,\u201d Svetlova said. \u201cNot today, not tomorrow, not after one year. It\u2019s just not interested in that\u2026 And being a fragile state, and also dealing with tons of domestic issues, security, and so on, there is absolutely no way that Ahmed al-Sharaa is, can, or will be willing ever to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The best course of action, she said, is for Israel to first get its own house in order. Instead of just continuing to press the offensive, Svetlova said, Israel must come up with a plan to defeat Hezbollah diplomatically as well as militarily, and only then present that to Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsrael can, first of all, present its own strategy for Lebanon,\u201d she said. \u201cSo what do we want to happen? How do we want it to happen? And again, I think that anybody who looks at the Lebanon scene understands that you cannot achieve this goal by military means only.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUS President Donald Trump meets with Egypt\u2019s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi on the sidelines of the G7 summit, June 17, 2026, in Evian-les-Bains, France. (AP Photo\/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)<\/p>\n

And what if Trump tries to dictate terms? At a certain point, Naor said, Jerusalem needs to do what it thinks is best in combating one of its most powerful foes, even at the risk of angering a US president whose good graces may be fading.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if we need to take the American considerations into account,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a clear Israeli consideration here, and this war can\u2019t stop here. That is, the military pressure on Hezbollah can\u2019t stop here.\u201d<\/p>\n

What happens if the US no longer supports that fight?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said. \u201cBut to stop here is to go backward and lose much of what we\u2019ve achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For more than two years now, Israel\u2019s growing number of critics abroad have condemned it for what they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498833,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[190560,190507,13812,54,42,88,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-498832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-2026-israel-hezbollah-conflict","tag-2026-us-israel-war-with-iran","tag-ahmed-al-sharaa","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-lebanon","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498832","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=498832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498832\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}