Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has learned the hard way that his political relationship with US President Donald Trump comes at a high price.

While Trump has often been supportive of Israel, the United States’ chief ally in the Middled East, he has occasionally differed with Netanyahu on such hot button issues as Iran and Lebanon and pressured him to comply with his whims and policies.

With Israel’s image in the United States having deteriorated due to its military campaigns in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon,Trump – an erratic, temperamental, transactional and unpredictable person – has adopted a far more critical and even harsh tone toward Netanyahu in particular and Israel in general.

No one should be surprised by Trump’s increasingly cool attitude toward Netanyahu. A disciple of the insular America First credo, he has upset old allies like Canada and India, alienated international trading partners by imposing a raft of higher tariffs, sided with Russia over Ukraine within the context of their protracted war, and hinted that the NATO alliance may have outlived its usefulness.

Until now, Netanyahu, Israel’s longest serving prime minister, has glowingly described his partnership with Trump as “an alliance like no other.”

Early in the Iran war – which broke out on February 28 and effectively ended yesterday with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran – Netanyahu portrayed himself as Trump’s peer. In defence of his position, he said he talked to Trump “almost every day,” trading ideas and “deciding together.”

Netanyahu’s upbeat portrayal was accurate, at least to some extent. Netanyahu convinced Trump to attack Iran in a joint operation with Israel, assuring him that they could create the conditions for the overthrow of the theocratic and autocratic Iranian regime.

This was the first time that the United States and Israel jointly embarked on a war against a common enemy at exactly the same moment. Trump’s Democratic Party predecessors, from Barack Obama to Joe Biden, staunchly resisted Netanyahu’s overtures to attack Iran, which is widely regarded as Israel’s most dangerous foe.

As the war dragged on and the price of gasoline and natural gas rose and bit into the U.S. and global economy, and as Iran refused to submit to Trump’s demand of “unconditional surrender,” disillusionment gradually set in at the White House.

Trump desperately sought to extricate himself from the economic fallout of the war, which, he feared, could affect midterm elections in November and the standing of his Republican Party. Netanyahu, on the other hand, wanted to press on until his objectives had been met.

Netanyahu’s goals were four-fold: to topple the Islamic regime, which rejects Israel’s very existence; to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, which already had been badly damaged by Israeli and the US air strikes in the 12-day war in June 2025; to eliminate its ballistic missile arsenal, which poses a real threat to Israel and the Arab Gulf states, and to demolish Iran’s network of proxies within the Axis of Resistance.

Trump and Netanyahu were on the same page until Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which about one-quarter of the world’s supply of oil and liquified natural gas transits. With the prices of these vital commodities exploding and further driving up inflation, Trump was tempted to declare victory, accept a ceasefire and end the war, which, judging by public opinion surveys, was quite unpopular in the United States.

In short order,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)