Netanyahu vows we dont need USA after Trump | Political News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed studies that President Donald Trump called him “f—– crazy,” saying he seems like his and the Republican administration are household.

Netanyahu made the claims during an interview with CNBC, where he mentioned some of the most urgent points of his administration, including his relationship to the U.S. When requested about a tense telephone call with the American chief, Netanyahu said that while he wouldn’t reveal the small print of the dialog, it was regular for “families” to disagree on sure points.

“If you think this is a crisis, you should be in some other conversations. But we’ve always found a way. We have so many agreements. We agree on the main things. We want to get Iran, the nuclear program in Iran, finished. We want to make sure that Iran doesn’t pose a threat to Israel, to the Middle East, to America, that it doesn’t develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them not only to Israel and to every capital in Europe, but to every city in the United States,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu said Israel doesn’t need US help. He said: “One of the senators in the American Senate said, ‘If we had an Israel instead of an Afghanistan, we wouldn’t have had to spend $1 trillion — we would spend a fraction of a fraction of that,’ which was, you know, a few billion dollars a year.

“But I said, ‘We do not need that, either.”

Netanyahu added: “That’s our common aim. That’s what we set out to do, and to increase the circle of peace, as the President and I did in the Abraham Accords together. So we have common targets. Sometimes we have, as in the best of households, you might have these tactical disagreements. We always discover a method to work them out, and we do so as great mates. We can disagree in the morning and by the afternoon we have common motion.”

Netanyahu’s comment comes as several reports indicated that the American president insulted the Israeli leader in a fit of outrage over strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

“What the f— are you doing?” Trump reportedly told Netanyahu on Monday, according to Axios, which first reported on the tense calls.

“You’re f—– loopy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” the president continued, unnamed members of the administration told the news outlet.

Trump confirmed the phone call on Wednesday during a pre-taped podcast interview, dismissing that his comments came from anger: “I would not say indignant. I used to be a little bit perturbed at his continuously combating with Lebanon, you already know.”

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The president’s acknowledgement of the tense call with Netanyahu that involved expletives is a sign of the growing pressure he faces to resolve the Iran war, as higher energy prices and economic uncertainty are harming Republicans going into midterm elections and hampering global commerce.

But Trump remained noncommittal about a timeline for settling the conflict, saying the Strait of Hormuz might stay blocked through the Labor Day holiday on Sept. 7. He has insisted that Iran stop any efforts that could lead to a nuclear weapon and that the strait be reopened for the shipments of oil and natural gas.

Meanwhile, an Israeli strike Wednesday hit a car on a busy highway just south of Beirut, hours before the second day of talks between Lebanon and Israel in Washington are set to take place.

The strike in Khaldeh came without warning, and it was not immediately clear if the person targeted was killed. Israel usually says it targets members of the Hezbollah militant group in these drone strikes.

Israel and Lebanon on Monday reached a U.S.-brokered agreement where Israel would not strike Beirut’s southern suburbs and Hezbollah would end its attacks on northern Israel. The agreement was made hours after Israel announced that it was going to launch strikes across the sprawling urban neighborhoods near the Lebanese capital in what would have been the most intense strikes since a nominal ceasefire went into effect on April 17.

The State Department said progress was made during the first day of talks on Tuesday. Lebanon hopes to widen the scope of the ceasefire so it becomes comprehensive across the country. Israel wants to disarm Hezbollah immediately before it ends its operations in Lebanon and withdraws its troops from dozens of villages and towns.

Not long after the strike on Khaldeh, the Israeli army said it intercepted what it called a hostile plane coming from southern Lebanon, but didn’t immediately blame Hezbollah. Hezbollah has not claimed a cross-border assault since the settlement.