Trump makes major play with Lebanon after | Political News

President Donald Trump made a major political play with the president of Lebanon shortly after he staunchly snubbed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Tueday, the Lebanese Embassy in Washington said on Telegram that the White House invited President Joseph Aoun to chat on July 21, which comes a day after Aoun categorically rejected any risk of a assembly between himself and Netanyahu.

Aoun said he would immediately go away the premises if he discovered himself in Netanyahu’s neighborhood, issuing a scathing assertion to Lebanese daily newspaper An-Nahar.

“There is no truth to reports about a meeting with Netanyahu,” Aoun said. “I am not considering it, and I will not respond to it as long as Israeli attacks on Lebanese citizens and violations of Lebanese territory continue.”

“If we found ourselves in the same room, I would leave immediately,” the Lebanese president added.

Aoun has agreed to open talks with Israel as half of a new settlement outlined under American mediation, but he continues to reject any type of face-to-face assembly with Netanyahu — even though such an thought has been floated by U.S. President Donald Trump in latest days.

Trump is set to meet with Aoun on July 21, and he is seemingly to also meet with Netanyahu over the next couple of weeks. The latter and he had a cellphone call lately, after which Netanyahu adamantly maintained that his “friendship” with the U.S. chief stays “fine.”

Aoun’s statements come after the signing of a framework settlement between Israel and Lebanon, which calls for a gradual withdrawal of the Israeli Defense Forces from sure areas in southern Lebanon as nicely as the disarmament of Hezbollah.

The Lebanese president believes a cessation of hostilities is an indispensable prerequisite for any type of political progress between the 2 nations.

Hezbollah condemned the settlement, refusing to lay down its arms. Naïm Qassem, its secretary common, called the textual content a “humiliating agreement” and a “capitulation,” including that “without Hezbollah, nothing will go through.”

Aoun has continued to defend the settlement despite those criticisms, stating that it presents the only lifelike method to keep away from a new warfare between Israel and Lebanon.

Netanyahu insists his relationship with Trump is ‘effective’ despite U.S. president’s growing impatience

On Monday, Netanyahu insisted that his relationship with Trump is “fine,” despite stories that the American president’s persistence with the Israeli chief is faltering.

Netanyahu appeared on Fox & Friends on Monday to focus on the most urgent points going through his administration, including the warfare in Iran and his alliances with other Middle Eastern nations.

The Israeli chief disregarded issues about Trump’s public and non-public feedback criticizing his administration, describing both nations as “the best of allies.”

“First of all, we see eye to eye on just about everything. And sometimes, as happens among the best of allies — and we are the best of allies — there can be differences of opinion,” Netanyahu said.

“You can imagine the president has his way of expressing things, and so do I. But, you know, we’re allies. We’re your model ally. And we respect the United States of America,” he continued.

He went on to say that Israel just isn’t only a democracy but a democracy in which “the overwhelming majority of the people unabashedly support the United States of America.”

“So, my relationship with the president is fine. And we have a way of ironing out our differences as allies who respect each other,” he continued.

But later in the interview, tensions between both superpowers have been on show when Netanyahu criticized Trump’s proposal to provide Turkey with F-35 jets. The Israeli chief described Turkey as a “regime infected by the Muslim brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants ‘Death to America.'”

“I don’t think they should be given F-35s or engines for their fighter jets,” he said.