According to excerpts from a new book published by Forward, there was a rocky U.S.-Israel relationship toward the end of the Trump administration with the former president yelling out “F**k him” about former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with. … Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake,” Trump falsely said during the interview for the new book.
The book, “Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East,” reveals that Trump was upset over the “disloyalty” Netanyahu showed when he followed protocol and congratulated Joe Biden for his victory in the 2020 November election.
Avi Berkowitz, who served as Mideast peace envoy, told the author Barak Ravid that the relationship between the Trump administration and Israel deteriorated. According to the outlet, when former Israeli Ambassador to D.C. Ron Dermer requested to speak directly to Trump, Berkowitz told him, “The president doesn’t like you guys now.”
“A month later, Dermer met with Kushner at the White House but was thrown out for saying Netanyahu was now doubting whether he could trust the Trump administration. “Don’t be mistaken to think that everything that happened in the past three years was for you,” the outlet reports. ‘We did it because we were serious about peace,” Kushner screamed at Dermer, Ravid writes. “To say such a thing about us is disgusting. Get out.”‘
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Things got worse between the Trump administration and Israel.
‘Netanyahu was furious that his partners managed to convince the administration that annexation was not an Israeli consensus,’ the report continues. “The final four days of June were the closest point in the relationship between Netanyahu and the Trump administration,” Ravid writes. Netanyahu threatened to go it alone without U.S. approval” This will be the biggest mistake you have ever made,” Kushner told him. “Trump will come out against you.”
Things were so bad between the Israeli leader and Trump that a former administration official said Netanyahu treated Trump “like a flowerpot” at a ceremony.
Featured image via Presidencia de la República Mexicana/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
