Trump confronts Netanyahu over war in Lebanon: What the hell are you doing, are you fucking crazy?

The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has confronted the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the renewed Israeli military offensive in Lebanon, going so far as to scold him and call him a “fucking crazy man”, after assuring that if it were not for him he would be in jail.

According to the American portal Axios, the call between Trump and Netanyahu to discuss the situation in Lebanon, when the Israeli offensive threatens to derail the negotiation process between the United States and Iran for the cessation of hostilities and the reopening of Hormuz, was high-voltage and highlighted the differences between the two in the context of the war in the Middle East.

“You’re completely crazy. You’d be in jail if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your skin. Now everyone hates you. Everyone hates Israel for this,” the US president said, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.

Meanwhile, at another point in the call, Trump confronted Netanyahu and told him that “what the hell was he doing,” in reference to the military escalation in Lebanon.

The official version of this call is, however, more diplomatic, and avoids any mention of a clash between both leaders, who agreed to jointly launch the offensive against Iran on February 28, a war that has become regional in scale and is now focused on the crisis at the Hormuz Pass, blocked to international trade.

“I have had a very productive call with Prime Minister ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu of Israel and there will be no troops going to Beirut and the troops that were on the way are already back,” said the head of the White House in a note on his social networks, in which he also claimed to have established contacts with the Shiite militia party Hezbollah, which “have agreed to stop shooting.” “Israel will not attack them and they will not attack Israel,” he added at a time when the process with Iran is faltering.

For his part, Netanyahu has insisted on his social networks that he confirmed to Trump that “if Hezbollah does not stop attacking” Israeli cities and population, “Israel will attack terrorist targets in Beirut.” “Our position remains firm,” he said, emphasizing that the Israeli Army “will continue to act as planned in southern Lebanon.”

The last large-scale hostilities in Lebanon broke out on March 2, when Hezbollah launched projectiles at Israel in response to the assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the aforementioned offensive. This step broke the ceasefire agreed in November 2024 after thirteen months of fighting following the Hamas attacks on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023.