Tense relationship when Trump and Netanyahu meet

 

Malin Carlsson/TT

 

Published 06:00

     

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump are expected to meet at the White House soon. The photo was taken at a meeting in December last year. Photo: Alex Brandon/AP/TT

Are they friends or enemies?

US President Donald Trump is expected to soon receive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. And the outside world is watching with excitement, after the tone between the two leaders has hardened recently.

“We get along well. He knows who is in charge,” Donald Trump said of his Israeli colleague Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with the news site Axios last week.

But the question is whether they really get along as well as the president says.

When war broke out between Iran on the one hand and Israel and the US on the other in February, the latter two showed a united front against Iran. But the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu has been tested in recent months, as Trump has sought to reach a ceasefire agreement with Iran. Netanyahu, on the other hand, has consistently tried to maintain the fighting with arch-rival Iran and resisted US attempts to de-escalate.

Kritisk mot F-35-försäljning

Took to the keyboard

In June, Israeli forces bombed the Lebanese capital Beirut. At least three people were killed in the attacks, and Trump, who wanted to secure a deal with Iran, took to the keyboard:

“This morning’s attack on Beirut should not have happened, especially not on such a special day, when we are so close to a peace deal with Iran,” he wrote on Truth Social.

The phone call between the two leaders after the attack was less diplomatic. According to sources with insight, there was some swearing from the American president.

“Why are you blowing up buildings?” Trump asked Netanyahu, according to sources with insight told The Wall Street Journal.

“Stop blowing up buildings,” Trump said.

Critical of F-35 sales

But the criticism is not one-sided. Netanyahu has appeared extensively in the American media ahead of and during the NATO summit in the Turkish capital Ankara this week. The message has been directed directly at President Trump: Do not sell the advanced F-35 fighter jet to Turkey.

– He (Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan) is not exactly a model ally for the United States. He threatens to destroy my country, the only Jewish state, Netanyahu said in an interview with CNN this week.

At the same time, Netanyahu, in the same interview, downplays the differences between the two leaders.

– He is the president of the United States. He does what is good for the United States. I am the prime minister of Israel, I do what is good for Israel and mostly these things coincide.

The meeting between the two leaders could take place as early as next week and will be the first since the meeting in the White House's so-called situation room in February, before the attacks on Iran began.