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

Fears that President Donald Trump could “turn” on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as critical pressure on the US-Iran peace deal mounts in Jerusalem is a concern highlighted after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck Beirut for a second time on Sunday, a regional analyst says.

Despite US warnings that any strikes would derail progress with Tehran, the attacks came after Netanyahu prepared to convene the Israeli Security Cabinet and Trump announced that a new US-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) was expected to be signed soon.

“Today’s attacks in Beirut are creating problems for finalizing the deal,” a diplomat involved in talks with Tehran told Fox News 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 condemned Israel’s attacks in a post on Truth Social and also told Axios that Netanyahu “has no judgment.”

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Nathan SachsA senior researcher at the Middle East Institute said there was “certainly this fear in the Israeli government”, calling it a “rational and healthy fear” about the pending deal.

He said a strategic rift existed between the two allies, contrasting Netanyahu’s doctrine of sustained, long-term military pressure with Trump’s immediate quest for diplomatic victory.

“There is now a perception in Israel that Trump is tired of Netanyahu and the Israelis, and many people believe that if Trump gets fed up with him, he may break the norms in other directions and turn his back on Israel,” Sachs said. Israeli foreign policy experthe told Fox News Digital.

While discussions continued through Pakistan’s mediation, the Israeli prime minister’s office issued a statement shortly after Trump announced a possible deal with Tehran on June 11.

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

Hezbollah attacks have targeted Israeli civilians for the past three days, a senior Israeli official said on Sunday, as Israel braces for Iranian retaliation.

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President Trump’s push for a US-Iran deal is raising concerns that Israel may turn against Netanyahu in Jerusalem as his attacks in Beirut threaten to complicate negotiations. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Trump criticized Netanyahu in a phone call earlier this month, reportedly calling him “crazy” for the initial attack on Beirut that complicated the administration’s negotiations with Iran.

“It doesn’t just look like there is a crisis, and the president’s abuse of the prime minister is clearly present against the background of a joint and major military operation,” Sachs said.

“Israel and Netanyahu first looked at Trump and saw both the huge carrots and the huge potential sticks,” Sachs said of Epic Rage and the launch of Operation Roaring Lion on February 28.

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

“Netanyahu was always ready for long-term preparations,” Sachs said. “And the long haul isn’t four months; the long haul is years. Trump likes quick victories. When the quick victory doesn’t happen – which it didn’t – you now have a whole new set of problems.”

“Trump’s preference appeared to be away from pursuing a much broader campaign aimed at achieving Israel’s preferred goals, and he also had a much narrower understanding 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 by an Israeli airstrike in central Beirut, Lebanon, April 9, 2026. (Hasan Ammar/AP)

But Sachs noted that Trump and Netanyahu generally share common goals of curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, eliminating Hezbollah’s armed presence in Lebanon and establishing a post-Hamas future for Gaza.

But he said: “Having this wish list is not the same as having a strategic goal. Neither is tied to those goals as strategic goals that dictate concerted action going forward.”

Sachs also argued that the tension between Trump and Netanyahu reflects different temperaments.

“Netanyahu sees himself as a strategic thinker; he is very talented and of course has a very high opinion of himself, but he is completely different,” he said.

“Netanyahu is a knowledgeable, well-educated, patient, highly skeptical and deeply pessimistic man by nature. His self-image is more like: ‘I’ve thought of things in ways you can’t, because I’m smarter than you.’

“He is very suspicious of everyone around him and has been surrounded by a coterie of the same individuals for decades.”

“Their worldviews are actually very different as well, in terms of personality and where they come from,” Sachs added.

“You can’t imagine Netanyahu spending hours at night on social media. He’s not interested in that, 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 that, but it’s an image he projects, and I think that’s partly true.”

“Netanyahu also believes that you live with a problem, manage it, and throw it away. Trump is the opposite.”

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“The United States may turn away and remain uninterested; Israel does not feel it has that privilege,” Sachs said.

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