Fears grow in Israel that Trump could flip on Netanyahu over Iran deal

A regional analyst says fears that President Donald Trump could “flip” on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid a critical push for a U.S.-Iran peace agreement are growing in Jerusalem, a concern highlighted Sunday after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) struck Beirut for a second time.

Despite U.S. warnings that any strikes would derail a breakthrough with Tehran, the strikes came as Netanyahu prepared to convene Israel’s Security Cabinet and after Trump announced a new U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) was expected to be signed imminently.

“The strikes today in Beirut are creating issues with finalizing the deal,” a diplomat involved in the talks with Tehran told Chief Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst, adding that they were “a clear attempt by Israel to sabotage the president’s deal and drag the United States back into war.”

Trump went on to condemn Israel’s strikes in a post on Truth Social, also telling Axios that Netanyahu had “no f—ing judgment.”

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Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, noted there was “absolutely this fear in the Israeli government,” calling it “a rational and healthy fear” over the pending deal.

He said a strategic chasm existed between the two allies, contrasting Netanyahu’s doctrine of sustained, long-term military pressure with Trump’s pursuit of immediate diplomatic victories.

“Now there is a sense in Israel that Trump may be growing weary of Netanyahu and the Israelis, and many others believe that if he got sick and tired of him, he could break norms in other directions and flip on Israel,” Sachs, an Israeli foreign policy expert, told Digital.

With discussions underway through Pakistani mediation, the Israeli prime minister’s office released a statement shortly after Trump announced the possible deal with Tehran on June 11.

Jerusalem “is not a party to the memorandum of understanding” between Washington and Tehran, Netanyahu said before reiterating on June 12 that Iran was “working to destroy the Jewish state.” He assured Israelis he had dedicated his life to “preventing them from doing so.”

On Sunday, a senior Israeli official also said Hezbollah attacks had targeted Israeli civilians for the previous three days as Israel prepared for Iranian retaliation.

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President Trump’s push for a U.S.-Iran deal is fueling concern in Jerusalem that he could turn on Netanyahu as Israeli strikes in Beirut threaten to complicate negotiations. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Trump had already criticized Netanyahu during a phone call earlier this month, reportedly calling him “crazy” over a first strike on Beirut that was complicating the administration’s negotiations with Iran.

“It’s not just that there seems to be a crisis — and there were clearly expletives used by the president toward the prime minister on the backdrop of a joint and large military operation,” Sachs said.

“Israel and Netanyahu had first looked at Trump and saw both enormous carrots and enormous potential sticks,” Sachs said of the start of Operation Epic Fury and Roaring Lion on Feb. 28.

“Trump was a huge opportunity for Netanyahu because he was willing to break the mold on anything, but Israel has made a potentially strategic, historic mistake in putting all its eggs in one basket,” he added.

“Netanyahu was always prepared for the long haul,” Sachs said. “And the long haul is not four months; the long haul is years. Trump likes quick wins. Once the quick win did not materialize — and it did not — now you have a whole new set of problems.”

“Trump’s preference seemed far from pursuing a much broader campaign aimed at achieving the goals that Israel prefers, and he also has a much narrower conception of what a deal would be,” he added.

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Lebanese civil defense workers search for victims in the rubble of a building destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, on April 9, 2026. (Hassan Ammar/AP)

Sachs noted, however, that Trump and Netanyahu broadly shared goals on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, eliminating Hezbollah’s armed presence in Lebanon and establishing a post-Hamas future for Gaza.

But he said, “having that wish list is not the same as having a strategic goal. They haven’t both committed to them as strategic goals that dictate concerted action going forward.”

Sachs also argued that tensions between Trump and Netanyahu reflect different temperaments.

“Netanyahu thinks of himself as a strategic thinker — very able, and of course, he has a very high opinion of himself — but he is completely different,” he observed.

“Netanyahu is an erudite, well-educated, patient, highly suspicious and extremely pessimistic man by nature. His self-image is more, ‘I have thought everything through in ways you could not, because I’m smarter than you.’

“He’s very suspicious of everyone around him, and he’s been surrounded by this same coterie of individuals for decades.”

“In terms of personality and where they come from, their worldview is also actually very different,” Sachs added.

“You can’t imagine Netanyahu spending hours at night on social media. He doesn’t go on it himself, and it’s hard to imagine President Trump spending hours reading books, which Netanyahu likes to portray himself as doing. I doubt he has time for it, but that is an image he projects, and I think it is partially true.”

“Netanyahu also believes you live with a problem, you manage it, and you kick the can down the road. Trump is the opposite.”

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“The U.S. may turn away and be uninterested; Israel simply does not think it has that privilege,” Sachs said.

“Netanyahu and Trump have very different time horizons, and that is partly geography and interest — and partly personality.”