Trump Goes After Netanyahu Amid Deal   06/17 06:18

   

   (AP) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told President Donald 
Trump last year that he was the "greatest friend Israel ever had in the White 
House."

   Now, as Trump tries to finalize a deal to end the war with Iran, he's 
unloading on Netanyahu with rhetoric that no other American leader has dared to 
use publicly.

   He claimed credit for Israel's existence -- "without me, there would be no 
Israel" -- and cursed his judgment in interviews. He even described him as 
"crazy."

   Netanyahu's tenure as prime minister spans four U.S. presidents, and he's 
frustrated all of them at one point or another. But none has voiced that as 
openly as Trump, who started the conflict in tandem with Netanyahu.

   The tension comes as Trump criticizes recent Israeli attacks in Lebanon, 
which threatened to jeopardize negotiations between Washington and Tehran. 
Trump has been pushing for a deal as he faces political blowback at home, where 
the war is unpopular and has driven up gasoline prices.

   "If Netanyahu gets in between something Trump really wants, and that's out 
of this war, he's prepared to use the leverage that he has," said Aaron David 
Miller, who served as an adviser on Middle East issues to Democratic and 
Republican administrations over two decades.

   An agreement is scheduled to be signed on Friday in the Burgenstock resort 
near the city of Luzern. Speaking on Tuesday at the annual G7 summit in France, 
Trump said he told Netanyahu that he's been unhappy with his recent moves.

   "Without the U.S., there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no 
Israel because no other president was willing to do what I did," Trump said. "I 
have had a great relationship with Bibi. Now Bibi has to be more responsible 
with respect to Lebanon."

   There has long been a bipartisan consensus around supporting Israel in 
Washington, but that has frayed in recent years. Liberals have been 
increasingly outraged by Israel's treatment of Palestinians, especially during 
the war in Gaza, and conservatives have questioned the importance of 
longstanding American support for Israel. There are concerns about antisemitism 
on the left and the right.

   Trump's latest comments drew swift criticism from left-leaning groups.

   "He is framing Israel's mere existence as contingent on him," said Halie 
Soifer, who leads the Jewish Democratic Council of America. "It's deeply 
offensive to the vast majority of Jews who care about Israel's future."

   President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris often disagreed with 
Netanyahu during the war in Gaza, and sometimes they criticized him publicly. 
But they were more circumspect to avoid facing accusations of being anti-Israel.

   Conservative, pro-Israel groups were divided on the seriousness of Trump's 
public condemnation of Netanyahu.

   Republican Jewish Coalition President Matt Brooks described Trump's 
criticism as little more than the inevitable disagreement among family members.

   Brooks dismissed that any muted criticism of Trump's comments from his party 
represented a political mixed message because Trump has been reliably 
supportive of Israel as president.

   "If Biden or Harris said something critical, it came from the position of 
someone who was hostile toward or didn't have the same level of support for 
Israel that President Trump has," Brooks said.

   He noted the first Trump administration's role in moving the U.S. embassy in 
Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the return of Israeli hostages from Gaza 
during the president's second term, among other acts.

   Biden had criticized Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza, though Trump's 
criticism of Netanyahu comes with a "tremendous reservoir of goodwill on this 
issue that neither Biden nor Harris ever had."

   Pro-Israel advocate Mort Klein said Trump should have kept the comments 
private, especially in light of his public praise over the years of 
authoritarian leaders in Turkey, North Korea and China.

   Klein, president of the conservative Zionist Organization of America, said 
he worried that Trump was making the comments in public to appeal to Israel 
critics "because he sees that Americans have become more hostile toward Israel 
than they've ever been."

   "That worries me," Klein said.