Donald Trump is concerned that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will tarnish his reputation by bombed buildings in Beirut as he privately expressed his intense frustration.
Recently, the US president publicly aired his frustration at the Group of Seven summit in France that Israel is killing ‘too many people’ in its fight with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.
Trump has bashed Bibi for blowing up residential buildings while hunting down members of the Iran-backed proxy group.
Netanyahu’s willingness to let Israeli forces let loose in Lebanon, and even its capital city Beirut, have frustrated the President as he attempts to land an elusive agreement with Iran to end the three and a half month war.
‘Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,’ Trump said on the world stage at the G7 this week. ‘They should have been able to do the job faster.’
He continued, ‘You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody. There are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah.’
According to reports, Trump has been trying to get through to Netanyahu, both over the phone and through the global media as Benjamin Netanyahu’s relentless military campaigns could permanently damage his own presidency.
‘Why are you blowing up buildings?’ the US President reportedly asked Bibi in a recent phone call, according to the Wall Street Journal. His message remains the same: ‘Stop blowing up buildings.’
In another call, Trump reportedly grumbled to Bibi that the war’s impact on global markets could link him to Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression-era President of the 1930s.
A memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran was signed this week by their respective leaders. The MOU stipulates that Iran will fully open the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the end of the American blockade.
