On 18 June, JD Vance stood in the White House press briefing room and tore into Israeli critics of the Iran deal that Donald Trump had signed the previous day. The vice-president argued that Trump was the only world leader still sympathetic to Israel after nearly three years of wars across the Middle East. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government,” Vance said, “I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.” Vance also pointed out that two-thirds of the defensive weapons used to protect Israel from Iranian retaliation “have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.”
Trump's Frustration with Netanyahu
Over the past few weeks, Trump and his advisers have leaked that the president has had enough of Netanyahu’s obstinacy and resistance to a ceasefire with Iran. In a recent phone call, Trump reportedly called the Israeli premier “fucking crazy,” and later told Axios that Netanyahu “has no fucking judgment.” On 7 June, Trump told the Financial Times that Netanyahu had no choice but to accept the ceasefire: “I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots.”
Trump and his aides have played this game before, leaking displeasure but not following through by withholding US weapons. After the October 2023 Hamas attacks, Israel received tens of billions of dollars in US military assistance and unconditional political support, continuing under Trump. With no limits, Netanyahu concluded Israel can bomb virtually anyone. By fall 2025, Israel had unleashed a genocidal war on Gaza and attacked Iran, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Qatar.
The Test in Lebanon
Will Trump finally restrain Netanyahu? The test will come in Lebanon, where Israel has occupied a swath of the south and continued attacks despite multiple ceasefires. US intelligence agencies recently warned Trump that Netanyahu will probably try to sabotage a peace agreement with Iran’s leaders. Iran has made clear that the latest ceasefire must apply on all fronts, including Lebanon, and Tehran has pushed the Trump administration to pressure Israel to withdraw troops from Lebanese territory. Otherwise, Iranian leaders threatened to walk away and again close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of global oil and liquid gas supplies passed before Iran shut it during the war.
Trump has more incentive to impose limits after the Israeli leader spent months persuading Trump to launch a war aimed at toppling the Iranian regime. The gambit backfired as Iran withstood weeks of severe bombing and retaliated with missile strikes against American bases, targeted Gulf energy infrastructure, and threatened to trigger a global recession by closing the Strait of Hormuz.
Escalation in Lebanon
Once the joint US-Israeli attack on Iran started on 28 February, the conflict expanded to Lebanon. On 2 March, Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, leading to a massive Israeli bombing campaign and ground invasion that forcibly displaced more than 1 million people, a fifth of Lebanon’s population. After the US and Iran reached an initial ceasefire on 7 April, Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, insisted it would include Lebanon. But Netanyahu quickly declared Israel was not bound. On 8 April, Israel carried out one of the worst mass killings in Lebanon’s history, using dozens of warplanes to bomb more than 100 targets in 10 minutes, killing at least 350 people and wounding more than 1,200.
Israeli leaders openly threatened to replicate their Gaza playbook in southern Lebanon: intense aerial bombardment, destruction of civilian infrastructure, and systematic razing of housing to make way for a security zone. In late March, Defense Minister Israel Katz said troops would destroy “all houses” in Lebanese border villages “in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza.”
Trump's Public Criticism
The US and other Western powers said little about Israel’s threats, but Trump began to focus more on Lebanon when continued attacks endangered the wider ceasefire with Iran. On 1 June, Trump had an expletive-filled call with Netanyahu, berating him for expanding attacks and threatening to bomb Beirut. “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me,” Trump reportedly said. Two weeks later, at a G7 summit, Trump publicly criticized Israel’s brutal military tactics in Lebanon, which have killed more than 4,100 people since early March. “Too many people have been killed,” Trump said. “You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody.”
The question now is whether Trump is willing to back up his anger at Netanyahu with action—by threatening to withhold US weapons unless Israel withdraws from Lebanon. That could determine the fate of Trump’s peace deal with Iran.
