Netanyahu downplays US-Israel rift after Trump confirms criticism

Benjamin Netanyahu has played down reports of a rift with Donald Trump after the United States president confirmed that he recently called the Israeli prime minister “f****ing crazy”.Asked during an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, Netanyahu rejected the idea his ties with Trump have shifted: “No, this has been this has been a great relationship because he’s been the greatest friend that Israel has ever had in the White House.”Netanyahu — who is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crime charges in Gaza — added that the two leaders have mutual respect for each other.“We have common goals. Sometimes, we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements,” he said.“We always find a way to work them out, and we do so as great friends. We can disagree in the morning, and by the afternoon, we have common action.”The comments came after Trump told the New York Post that he berated Netanyahu during a call earlier this week over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon.“I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon,” Trump said.Israel’s attacks in Lebanon, including an announcement that the Israeli military would bomb the capital, Beirut, have risked derailing the talks between the US and Iran.Tehran has suggested that it may respond militarily to Israel’s assault in Lebanon. Trump said on Monday that he spoke to Netanyahu and a representative from Hezbollah, and both sides agreed to hold fire.But the fighting in southern Lebanon, where Israel has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and razed entire towns to the ground, has continued.The Israeli military, however, did hold off its attacks against Beirut.Despite the apparent disagreement over Lebanon, Trump lauded the Israeli prime minister on Wednesday, saying that he “works well” with him.“I like Bibi a lot,” he said, using Netanyahu’s nickname.For his part, Netanyahu stressed that he and Trump are on the same page in Lebanon and share the objective of disarming Hezbollah.“I think he understands that Lebanon has been taken hostage by Hezbollah,” Netanyahu said.Hezbollah, which is allied with Iran, says it is fighting against Israel’s aims to expand into Lebanon and ethnically cleanse the south of the country.The Lebanese group argues that its fighting is legitimate under the United Nations Charter, which grants the right to self-defence to states and individuals.After Israel and the US attacked Iran without direct provocation on February 28, fighting spilled over into Lebanon. Two days into the conflict, Hezbollah launched rockets against Israel in what it said was a response to the daily Israeli ceasefire violations and the killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Since the start of the regional war, several Israeli politicians have openly called for indefinitely capturing southern Lebanon and building settlements there.In March, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz outlined a plan to occupy the south of the country and prevent hundreds of thousands of residents from returning to their homes.Katz has also said he ordered “an acceleration in the destruction of Lebanese homes in contact-line villages”, admitting that the policy follows the model of the annihilation of Rafah and Beit Hanoon in Gaza.But Netanyahu said on Wednesday that he wants “peace” with Lebanon.“If we want to save Lebanon and if we want to get a Lebanese-Israeli peace, as I do, we have to disarm Hezbollah, and we have to demilitarise Lebanon,” the Israeli prime minister said. “I know that this is a goal that the president and I share.”The demilitarisation of the entire country appears to be a new Israeli demand that would require preventing the Lebanese Armed Forces from acquiring weapons that could pose a threat to Israel.Since April, Lebanese and Israeli officials have held several rounds of talks in the US, but the negotiations have failed to produce a ceasefire or halt Israel’s systemic destruction of Lebanese towns.