Speaking Wednesday in an interview with CNBC, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed President Trump calling him “f***ing crazy” during a heated telephone conversation earlier in the week as the kind of “tactical disagreements” typical of even “the best of families.”
“Sometimes, as in the best of families, we have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out. We can disagree in the morning, and we have a common action by the afternoon,” the Israeli leader said.
Mr. Trump confirmed earlier, speaking with a New York Post podcast, that he had leveled the sharp criticism at his Israeli counterpart during a tense phone call, as the president said he had become “a little bit perturbed” about Israel’s fight with Hezbollah in Lebanon holding back U.S. peace talks with Iran.
“My relationship with Trump is the same. He respects me, and I respect him. We always find a way to work out our differences,” Netanyahu said Wednesday.
He didn’t offer a full-throated backing for diplomatic efforts to end the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran launched more than three months ago, but said Mr. Trump believed he could “solve the enrichment problem” – referring to Iran’s nuclear program – “with diplomatic pressure and tough negotiations. I think he should be given a chance.”
But the Israeli leader did not back down on his country’s plans to ensure that Iranian-backed Hezbollah, based in neighboring Lebanon, no longer poses a threat to his country.
“If we want to save Lebanon, if we want to get a Lebanese-Israeli peace — as I do — we have to disarm Hezbollah and we have to demilitarize Lebanon. This is a goal Trump and I share,” he said. “You can’t have these genocidal terrorists taking over this poor country of Lebanon, using it to try to invade Israel — the way that Hamas invaded us, murder our civilians, kill our men, rape our women. No country would accept that.”
Lebanese and Israeli officials were set to meet for another round of direct talks in Washington on Wednesday, aimed at bolstering a U.S.-brokered ceasefire they agreed to weeks ago, but which Hezbollah and Israel have both accused each other of violating daily since Mr. Trump announced it.
