Talking to reporters on the White House lawn first thing Tuesday morning, Donald Trump let loose what may well have been the most bitter public denunciation of Israel by an American president since, well, ever.
Over and over, and over, and over, he savaged Israel’s leadership for ostensibly breaching the ceasefire he had brokered with Iran (which Israel hadn’t, but was about to), for having “dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I’ve never seen before” on Iran before the ceasefire came into effect, and generally for acting like ingrates after he had dispatched B-2 bombers to “obliterate” Iran’s three key nuclear facilities, notably including the near-impregnable Fordo.
But the overwhelming weight of his barrage was directed at Israel, generally regarded as America’s closest ally in the region, which had lost four more civilians hours earlier in a pre-ceasefire missile attack — a missile attack by the US-loathing, would-be Israel-destroying Islamic extremist regime in Tehran, which had continued to fire missiles immediately after the truce was meant to have begun at 7 am, and again more than three hours later. It was to the latest Iranian barrage that Israel was about to respond, so infuriating the US president.
Although his former chief strategist Steve Bannon assessed that Trump had been “as mad as I’ve ever seen the president of the United States,” and ascribed this to cumulative fury at “the many lies we’ve gotten from the Netanyahu government,” Trump seemed largely mollified just a few hours later, telling reporters there’d be no consequences for Israel because it ultimately “didn’t do anything” to violate the ceasefire. By Wednesday, he was praising the Israelis for scaling back the retaliation — “I was so proud of them” — and acknowledging that “technically they were right” to claim that Iran had breached the ceasefire with its morning missile fire. “It was a little bit of a violation.”
Last night he told the Israeli justice system to drop the cases against Bibi.
ReplyDeleteSo his relationship with Bibi remains excellent.
What is clear is that Trump and Bibi have been playacting to distract and confuse their opponents for months now. So this tirade was likely planned and meant to send a message to the MAGA crowd that opposed the strike, to mollify them. Then it was back to the usual business.
ReplyDeleteNot sure it was planned. He just got frustrated in the heat of the moment because he feared his ceasefire might collapse. It is just that he got angry in the moment, like he does with everyone. But it did not break their relationship. It is not the same as with Clinton or Obama who hated Bibi and wanted "regime change".
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