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Netanyahu once decried ‘daylight’ with Washington. Now he’s tolerating Trump’s glare.
WASHINGTON – When Benjamin Netanyahu met with Donald Trump in February, the Israeli prime minister’s first meeting with the president in his second term, he made clear that he hoped the days of “daylight” between the two countries were gone.
”When Israel and the United States don’t work together, that creates problems,” Netanyahu said then. ”When the other side sees daylight between us — and occasionally, in the last few years, to put it mildly, they saw daylight – then it’s more difficult.”
The dig was at President Joe Biden and the differences the Democrat and Netanyahu had over Israel’s conduct of its war with Hamas in Gaza.
Trump and his deputies have since then expressed their frustrations with Israel in language far more blunt and excoriating than Biden ever deployed. They have also put their finger on the scale in shaping Israeli leaders’ actions and words more than Biden ever tried to.
“Frankly, it’s baffling to me that somehow he continues to get away with it,” said Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
Soifer noted that there was barely any pushback when Trump took actions that undermined Israel, including brokering a separate deal with the Houthi militia in Yemen that allowed it to continue attacking Israeli ships while allowing American ships to pass, and visiting Qatar, a backer of Hamas, but not Israel during a Middle East tour earlier this year.
She said what was striking about Trump’s actions were not necessarily the results, but the underlying assumption that he must be obeyed.
“He has actually pushed Netanyahu quite a bit and used a pretty sharp language in the process, which is not entirely a bad thing, but some of the extent to which he has either threatened or has threatened, I would say, is language that would be wholly unacceptable if it were a Democrat in any circumstance,” she said.
She offered an example: “He was emphatic in saying that Israel should not be annexing the West Bank. Now, it’s not that I disagree with that position, but he said Israel would lose ‘all support from the United States’ if it happened.”
Indeed, Netanyahu and his supporters have waged rebellions, and won concessions, over far less significant incursions against his authority. Yet the prime minister, who just over a year ago was deploying social media videos and a speech to Congress to criticize Biden, has been silent in the face of the blunt and at times vulgar broadsides he has endured from Trump and top deputies — and effusive in his continued praise of Trump.
Pro-Israel conservatives who were critical of how the Biden administration treated Israel say the difference is in how Trump’s tough love does not stint on the “love” component: Netanyahu is able to take the criticism because he knows it comes wrapped around goodies.
The United States in June joined Israel in its short war against Iran, the first such offensive U.S. role in an Israeli military action in the history of relations between the countries. Biden had provided Israel with logistical support in scuffles with Iran triggered by Israel’s war with Hamas, a terrorist organization that has for decades been allied with Iran, but did not directly involve the U.S. military.
“The amount of credit that this administration now has with the Israeli government is enormous,” said Jonathan Schanzer, the vice president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “It’s amazing what happens when you bomb the Iranian nuclear program, how much goodwill that buys you.”
Michael Makovsky, president of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a group that advocates for a robust U.S.-Israel military alliance, said Republicans are more likely to extract concessions from Israel because they have become the repository of support for Israel in the United States as Democrats have become increasingly disillusioned with the country.
“It makes it harder for Netanyahu to [buck] any pro-Israel Republican president, but especially Trump, who obviously would certainly hold it against him,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance, speaking to college students this week, further underscored the conundrum facing Netanyahu and pro-Israel voices when he emphasized that he did not see U.S. support for Israel as sacrosanct — and noted that Trump makes up his own mind when it comes to Israel.
“When people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they’re not manipulating or controlling this president of the United States,” he said.
Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state in the Obama administration, said Netanyahu was in a bind because Republicans in Congress who in any other circumstance would confront a president who criticized Israel were afraid of Trump.
“They’re willing to fall in line if that’s what he wants,” Rubin said. “They may try to do their work [lobbying for Israel] behind the scenes.”
Democrats, having fallen out with Netanyahu because of tensions during the Obama and Biden presidencies, are not going to step into that breach, said Rubin, who was the Jewish outreach official during the 2020 presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a strident Israel critic.
“Do Democrats want to take issue with that, that Trump is acting like he’s the prime minister of Israel, or do they kind of agree with some of that he’s doing?” he said.
It was during the June Iran war that Trump told the press outside the White House that Israel and Iran “don’t know what the f— they’re doing.” Last week alone, Vice President JD Vance called the Knesset “stupid” for voting to annex the West Bank, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s top Middle East envoy, said the administration felt “betrayed” by Israel’s strike on Hamas targets in Qatar.
The remark evinced barely a whimper from Israel, a stark contrast with the weeks of agonizing that eventuated when an anonymous Obama White House official in 2014 called Netanyahu “chickens–t” for dithering on peace and on how best to confront Iran. The ensuing diplomatic turmoil culminated in an apology to Netanyahu from the White House and from then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Trump famously not only does not do apologies, he has a track record of sacking anyone who works for him who does. He also doesn’t have to: Netanyahu is rolling with the punches, as long as they’re coming from Trump and co. Greeting Vance last week, Netanyahu said that the Israel-U.S. alliance has been “second to none” in Trump’s second term.
In fact, when apologies are forthcoming in the U.S.-Israeli relationship, they are from the Israeli side. In a White House meeting last month, Trump made a show of getting Netanyahu to apologize to Qatar’s prime minister for the strike.
Netanyahu’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, groveled in a televised apology for having advised Saudi Arabia to “keep riding camels in the desert” if the kingdom conditions a peace deal on a path to Palestinian statehood. The remarks infuriated the Trump administration, which is trying to bring the Saudis into the Abraham Accords, the normalization deals Trump brokered in 2020 at the end of his first term.
Netanyahu scrambled to tamp down the significance of the Knesset vote during Vance’s visit that called for the annexation of the West Bank, after Vance called the vote “a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it.”
The vote, Netanyahu said, was “a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel.”
It was a striking contrast with the last time the Israeli right wing thumbed its nose at a visiting prime minister, when Biden visited Israel in 2010 to emphasize the U.S.-Israel friendship – and Israel announced plans to build in a disputed portion of Jerusalem.
Biden and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rebuked Netanyahu – but in private, not on the Ben Gurion Airport tarmac, as Vance did. And Netanyahu deployed his diplomats and pro-Israel advocates in the United States to complain that the American reaction was over the top.
Trump gets a pass because he is family, especially now that he brokered the release of the last 20 living hostages held by Hamas, said Schanzer.
“When you have a close relationship with a friend and you’re able to take you know, as the Brits say, take the piss, you can take shots at somebody who you love and know and trust,” he said. Trump has the bandwidth with Israelis because he was able to bring home the hostages, Schanzer said.
“The Israeli right and the Israeli left cannot agree on the color of hummus right now, but they all agree that Donald Trump has done enormous good for the country,” he said. “The hostage families adore Trump and Witkoff and Kushner.”
Biden believed he had a close relationship with Israel and was in fact reluctant to press Israel hard as it retaliated against Hamas for its Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of close to 1,200 people in Israel, the event that triggered the war. The president came under fire from Democrats for not doing enough to leverage U.S. aid to contain Israel.
Makovsky of JINSA said Trump consistently couples the constraints he imposes on Israel with warnings that he is ready to unleash Israeli power if its enemies do not stand back.
“One of the most important things he said here is that if Hamas doesn’t agree to this agreement or abide by it, he will back Israel to do whatever they need to do,” Makovsky said, referring to the ceasefire Trump brokered in the Gaza war.
To the degree that Netanyahu has expressed unhappiness with tensions between Israel and the faction in the Trump administration led by Vance that seeks to roll back U.S. military alliances, including with Israel, it has been through leaks.
The Israeli satirical program “Eretz Nehederet” has noticed the difference in Netanyahu’s approaches to Biden and Trump and last week depicted Netanyahu as a supplicant to Trump, who was portrayed as a Roman emperor. “Donald Trump is emperor!” Netanyahu dances and sings in the sketch. “If you want an apology to [Qatar] you got it!”
Advocacy for “no daylight” between Israel and the United States stretches back decades and became an issue in Obama’s first year in office, when Jewish leaders pleaded with the new president to sustain the practice of keeping criticisms private.
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s Jewish community campaign on Trump’s behalf last year highlighted the phrase. The RJC did not return a request for comment for this story.
Some pro-Israel conservatives are wary of what they see as Republican distancing from Israel, although they are careful not to blame Trump. Mark Levin, the Jewish Fox News pundit, last month blasted White House insiders who criticized Netanyahu for tangling with movement conservatives like Tucker Carlson who are critical of Israel.
“They’re undermining the president,” Levin said of the officials leaking their criticisms of Netanyahu to the press. “They’re pushing a propaganda campaign. Not a word from the insiders about a single terrorist group or terrorist country. Just Israel and Netanyahu. This is a scandal.”
Yet daylight keeps creeping into the relationship – and some of its exponents are Jewish conservatives who have until now been among Israel’s most strident defenders.
Figures like Yoram Hazony, the Israeli-American philosopher who is close to Vance, do not criticize Netanyahu, but they are unabashed in criticizing Israeli lawmakers for endangering emerging ties between Israel and Arab nations.
“President Trump, VP Vance, and Netanyahu himself, are completely justified in thinking this behavior in the Israeli parliament is irresponsible, insulting, and tiresome — and in saying so in strong terms so the Saudis don’t just announce that the deal is off and walk away,” Hazony said last week.
Joel Pollak, a senior editor at the Trump-supporting Breitbart news, said in an op-ed that Trump’s role was to protect Netanyahu as the Israeli prime minister struggled to contain the far right.
“If Israel cannot stop its fanatics — some of whom regard the Israeli state as illegitimate — it will not survive,” Pollak wrote. “Yet Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, have struggled to rein in that fringe — especially because the existential threat posed by terrorism made internal law enforcement politically fraught.”
Trump, Pollak said, is “making clear that there will be a high diplomatic cost for yielding to the fringe.”
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Israeli Artist Forced to Close Mexico City Exhibit for ‘Safety Reasons’ After Antisemitic Harassment, Vandalism
Pro-Palestinian protesters and vandals hold a flag during a demonstration against Amir Fattal, an openly Zionist Israeli graphic artist. They later spray-painted the facade of the private KÖNIG GALERIE gallery, where he was exhibiting some of his AI-generated works. Photo: Gerardo Vieyra / SOPA Images via Reuters Connect
An Israeli artist based in Berlin was forced to close his solo exhibition at a Mexico City gallery a week earlier than planned following continued antisemitic harassment, a protest at his exhibit, and vandalism of the gallery.
Artist and curator Amir Fattal shared the news on Instagram about the closing of his exhibit, “I’m Just Here For The Pool,” at the König contemporary art gallery. The show opened on Feb. 3 and was expected to close on April 1, according to the gallery.
On March 26, pro-Palestinian activists spray-painted antisemitic and anti-Israel messages and symbols across the outer walls of the König gallery. Swastikas, Star of Davids, the word “Nazi,” and more offensive messages were spray-painted along with the number “666.” The number is used by the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist group, and it signifies the “number of the beast,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. On the door of the gallery, a vandal carved a swastika and the phrase “acqui hay terroristas,” which translates in English to “here there are terrorists.” The same phrase was written in chalk on the street in front of the gallery, according to photos shared by Reuters.
On March 21, during a guided tour of the gallery, roughly 15 demonstrators gathered outside, chanted against Fattal, and called him “a murderer” and “a Mossad agent,” according to Artnet.
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Israeli Forces to Expand Control in Southern Lebanon as Defense Chief Outlines Long-Term Security Plans
Smoke rises after an Israeli strike, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, as the US-Israeli conflict with Iran continues, in southern Lebanon, March 28, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Stringer
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) will maintain security control over territory in southern Lebanon up to the Litani River even after active ground operations against Hezbollah conclude, signaling plans for a sustained Israeli security presence along the northern front.
During a press briefing, Katz pointed to a shift beyond limited cross-border raids, outlining plans for a long-term security presence and the creation of a buffer zone as part of a broader effort to reshape the security landscape in Lebanon.
Under this new plan, the IDF will move to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in border villages using operational methods similar to those employed in the Gaza Strip against Hamas, aiming to permanently eliminate the threat of cross-border raids and anti-tank fire targeting Israeli frontline communities.
“The return of more than 600,000 southern Lebanese residents who fled north of the Litani River will remain completely prohibited until the security of Israel’s northern residents is guaranteed,” the Israeli defense chief said.
Katz also announced the IDF plans to establish a new defensive line inside Lebanese territory once the ground campaign concludes.
“The IDF will maintain security control over the entire area up to the Litani River, including all bridges, while fully neutralizing Radwan’s forces and destroying their weapons,” he said, referring to Hezbollah’s elite units.
“We are determined to separate Lebanon from Iran’s influence, to uproot the snake’s teeth, and eliminate Hezbollah’s threat capability,” Katz continued. “The situation in Lebanon will change once and for all — we will enforce security just as we do in Syria and Gaza.”
During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outlined a tougher operational approach to the campaign in Lebanon, emphasizing shifts in battlefield tactics following the heavy toll the fighting has taken.
“I have ordered our soldiers to avoid entering buildings whenever possible, using mechanical engineering equipment and heavy weapons instead,” Netanyahu said, explaining that the goal is to “minimize casualties” and to safeguard soldiers on the ground.
With prospects of potential ceasefire negotiations with Iran to end the ongoing war still uncertain, Netanyahu said Israel is shaping a new security reality along its northern border and will act independently of any agreement possibly reached with Tehran.
“Even if an agreement is reached with Iran, a ceasefire in Lebanon cannot be imposed on us — that must be Israel’s own independent decision,” the Israeli leader said.
The Iranian regime backs and ultimately commands Hezbollah, having formed the Lebanese terrorist group in the 1980s and, since then, providing significant amounts of weapons, funding, and training.
Last week, Hezbollah Secretary General Naim Qassem warned that negotiating with Israel while under fire would amount to forced surrender, adding that his fighters are prepared to continue operations “without limits.”
With a ground maneuver underway to expand a defensive zone in southern Lebanon, the IDF says it has eliminated over 850 Hezbollah terrorists since fighting began earlier this month, while continuing to dismantle the group’s command and weapons infrastructure.
Israel has intensified strikes targeting Hezbollah, particularly south of the Litani River, where the group’s operatives have historically been most active against the Jewish state. Hezbollah opened fire on Israel earlier this month, just a few days after the US and Israel launched their joint military campaign against Iran.
Israel has long demanded that Hezbollah be barred from carrying out activities south of the Litani, located roughly 15 miles from the Israeli border.
Although the overall number of attacks has decreased, Hezbollah continues to launch significant strikes against civilian areas while maintaining sustained operations targeting IDF forces in southern Lebanon.
In just the first month of the conflict, Israeli officials report that Hezbollah has carried out more than 900 coordinated attacks, marking a sharp increase in cross-border activity and a broader expansion of its operations across the region.
On Sunday, Israeli forces intercepted a Hezbollah a terrorist cell disguised as paramedics who tried to transport weapons in an ambulance.
For years, Hezbollah has embedded command posts, weapons depots, snipers, and troops within Shiite villages, situating them in the heart of civilian centers near schools, hospitals, mosques, and main roads to turn entire communities into battlefields.
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Newest Members of the IDF’s Ultra-Orthodox Hasmonean Brigade Get Their Berets
Illustrative: Members of the Hasmonean Brigade during their beret ceremony at the Western Wall on Aug. 6, 2024. Photo: Screenshot
The third set of soldiers in the Hasmonean Brigade, the Israel Defense Force’s first ultra-Orthodox brigade, completed eight months of training earlier this month and received their dark blue berets at the end of a beret march of approximately 40 kilometers, according to the Israeli news outlet Walla.
The troops will join the regular forces of the Hasmonean Brigade, which was established in 2024 and has participated in military operations in Syria, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and southern Lebanon. Members of the brigade live an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle, and their blue berets reportedly symbolize the sky. The brigade is named after the Hasmonean Jewish dynasty that ruled Judea, and liberated Jerusalem and the Temple from oppressive Greek rule.
In February, members of the Hasmonean Brigade’s Yonatan Battalion completed its first-ever battalion-level exercise in the Golan Heights area, “marking the conclusion of the battalion’s operational certification process and its preparation for operational activity,” according to the military. During the exercise, the soldiers were trained in combat in open terrain, targeted operations, and urban warfare scenarios. It took place mere weeks after the start of the Israel-Iran war, also known as Operation Roaring Lion.
“You can be ultra-Orthodox and be a combat soldier – you are making history,” Commander of the Ground Forces, Major General Nadav Lotan, said at the time. “The Hasmonean Brigade continues to establish itself as a combat brigade within the ground forces. This exercise, along with the establishment of the battalions, marks another significant step forward. I am proud of you – the brigade’s troops and commanders. You operate at a high operational standard while preserving your unique identity.”