Netanyahu is getting in Trump's way in the Middle East

 Iranian officials and U.S. President Donald Trump have balked at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s pledge to escalate the war in Lebanon, exposing apparent daylight between American and Israeli leaders as talks to end the conflicts in the Middle East drag on.

Iranian state-linked media reported on Monday that Tehran threatened to suspend its participation in peace talks with the U.S. over what it termed the “violation” of the wobbling ceasefire in Lebanon, which has been in place since April despite skirmishes continuing in northern Israel and southern Lebanon.

The Israeli military, on Netanyahu’s orders, has in recent days advanced further into Lebanon, reaching its deepest point inside the country in more than a quarter century and issuing new evacuation orders for residents in the south. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that fresh strikes across southern Lebanon on Tuesday had killed eight people.

Iran has said that the deal Trump seeks to end more than three months of war in the Middle East—triggered by U.S. and Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic on February 28—must include Lebanon. Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, who heads Iran’s negotiating team, told Lebanese parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri that Tehran would halt talks if attacks on Lebanon continued, according to the IRNA state news agency.

U.S.-Israeli Rift Over Lebanon

Trump, appearing to shrug off Tehran’s threat, told NBC News on Monday he thought the U.S. and Iran had “been talking too much.”

In private, the U.S. president told Netanyahu he was “f***ing crazy” for escalating the war in Lebanon and stopped Israeli plans to strike the Lebanese capital, Beirut, Axios reported, citing anonymous sources. Trump has previously described Netanyahu as a close ally, while the Israeli leader has deemed the Republican president “the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.”

Netanyahu had declared on Monday that he ordered Israel’s military to bomb Beirut in retaliation for attacks that the Iran-backed militant and political group Hezbollah made on northern Israel from Lebanon. Trump quickly said on social media that he had spoken with Netanyahu and urged him not to launch a “major raid” on Beirut, before the Israeli leader “turned his Troops around.”

Trump also said he had spoken with Hezbollah representatives and that they had agreed to halt attacks on Israel. Lebanon’s embassy in the U.S. said Hezbollah had accepted the U.S.’s terms for a “mutual cessation of attacks,” under which Israel would not strike Beirut as long as Hezbollah paused attacks on Israel.

Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow with the Chatham House think tank in London, said the remarks reportedly exchanged between Israeli and American leaders were not “the language between people who agree.”

“It doesn’t mean the relationship between the U.S. and Israel has come to an end,” Mekelberg told Newsweek, but “it will leave a scar.”

Little Progress on U.S.-Iran Peace Deal

Just minutes after Trump said he had de-escalated the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, the U.S. president insisted talks with Iran were progressing at “a rapid pace.“

But Ebrahim Azizi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, said Iran could become militarily involved if Israel continued attacks on Lebanon. “This is not an empty threat,” Azizi added.

With the U.S. and Iran’s appetites for war waning, and Trump looking to secure a peace deal, Netanyahu becomes an “obstacle” to the White House if he steps up the intensity of the conflict, Mekelberg said.

Netanyahu Under Pressure at Home

Netanyahu is also wrestling with domestic pressure. He is months out from contesting an election and is under the gun to take a tough stance on the threat of Hezbollah looming on Israel’s border.

The zigzagging on Lebanon drew anger from across the political spectrum inside Israel—including from centrist politician Yair Lapid, who heads Israel’s main opposition party and has described Israel as a “vassal state.”

In a message addressed to Netanyahu, Israeli Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said, “This is the time to tell our friend, President Trump—’no.'”

“Now is the time to do what is required and necessary to strike Hezbollah, to unleash the hands of our fighters, and to restore security to the north,” Ben-Gvir said.

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s former prime minister and a likely rival to Netanyahu in October’s election, has accused Netanyahu of losing Israeli “sovereignty.”