Donald Trump has warned Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel could find itself fighting alone if it resumes war with Iran – a blunt ultimatum that came as Israeli fighter jets sat on the runway ready to strike.
“I said, ‘Bibi, you better be careful, or you will be on your own very soon,’” Trump told Axios in an interview published on Monday, 8 June, referring to a phone call with the Israeli prime minister.
“Trump warned Netanyahu Israel could fight alone if it resumes Iran war, after Netanyahu defied orders and prepared strikes.”
The warning marked the latest flashpoint in a relationship already frayed by Netanyahu’s defiance of Trump’s earlier orders not to retaliate against Iran. Iran had unleashed waves of missiles at Israel on Sunday – the first such barrage since a ceasefire in April – after Israeli strikes on Beirut. Trump, who had demanded both sides stop “shooting” in a Truth Social post, was said to be “unhappy” about the Israeli action.
Despite that, when asked by the BBC on Monday whether Netanyahu had defied him, Trump said the missiles were “already on their way” when they spoke, adding: “If I tell him to do something, he does it.” The call lasted less than a minute.
Behind the scenes, the situation was more fraught. Two US officials and an Israeli source told Axios that Trump called Netanyahu on Sunday evening and asked him not to hit back. The Israeli PM insisted “we must draw a red line,” but Trump refused final approval. “As far as I’m concerned, you don’t have a green light, but you have your bills,” he told Netanyahu, according to reports. That conversation was calmer than one a few days earlier, in which Trump had reportedly called Netanyahu “f*ing crazy” and said: “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your a. Everybody hates you now.”
Netanyahu subsequently ordered his senior military commanders to cancel the planned strikes. On Monday, he announced in a televised address that Israel was holding back attacks on Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon “for now.” He said Iran “tried to dictate a new equation, one that we cannot accept,” and warned that if “they commit another error and strike us again, we will respond harshly simply because we have the right to defend ourselves.”
The conflict, which began on 28 February with coordinated US and Israeli strikes on Iran, has already sent global markets into turmoil after Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has been wrangling with Tehran over a long-term ceasefire and a new nuclear deal. Military experts note that while Israel can strike without US backing, it cannot sustain a prolonged war. Yehoshua Kalisky, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said: “There’s no doubt that Israel cannot go alone in this war for a long, long time, because the ammunition is consumable.”