Israeli Defense Forces struck Beirut for a second time on Sunday, just as President Donald Trump was pushing to finalize a memorandum of understanding with Iran, and the collision between those two tracks has opened a visible rift between Washington and Jerusalem that analysts say could reshape the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Trump condemned the Israeli strikes in a post on Truth Social. He had already dressed down Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a phone call earlier this month, reportedly calling him "crazy" over a first strike on Beirut that complicated the administration's Iran negotiations. And in an interview with Axios, Trump used blunt language about Netanyahu, saying the Israeli leader had "no f---ing judgment."
The friction is not routine diplomatic grumbling. Fox News reported that a growing fear inside the Israeli government is that Trump could simply "flip on Israel" if he grows tired of Netanyahu's resistance to the Iran deal framework.
A diplomat involved in the talks with Tehran told Fox News Chief Foreign Correspondent Trey Yingst that the Sunday strikes were doing real damage to the diplomatic track.
"The strikes today in Beirut are creating issues with finalizing the deal."
That same diplomat went further, calling the Israeli military action "a clear attempt by Israel to sabotage the president's deal and drag the United States back into war." No evidence was cited to support the sabotage claim, and Israel offered a sharply different account.
A senior Israeli official said Hezbollah had targeted Israeli civilians for the previous three days as Israel prepared for possible Iranian retaliation. In that framing, the Beirut strikes were defensive, not provocative.
Netanyahu's office released a statement shortly after Trump announced the possible deal on June 11, declaring that Jerusalem "is not a party to the memorandum of understanding" between Washington and Tehran. The next day, June 12, Netanyahu reiterated that Iran was "working to destroy the Jewish state" and said he had dedicated his life to "preventing them from doing so."
The administration's broader posture toward Iran has been anything but passive. Trump has vowed to hit Iran hard in the past, and the current push for a memorandum of understanding represents a different approach, one that Netanyahu clearly views with deep skepticism.
Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and an Israeli foreign policy expert, offered the most detailed assessment of the growing strain. He said the fear inside the Israeli government is real, and warranted.
"Now there is a sense in Israel that Trump may be growing weary of Netanyahu and the Israelis, and many others believe that if he got sick and tired of him, he could break norms in other directions and flip on Israel."
Sachs called that fear "a rational and healthy fear." He described a mismatch in personality, strategy, and time horizon between the two leaders that goes well beyond the current dispute.
On personality, Sachs drew a stark contrast. Netanyahu, he said, is "an erudite, well-educated, patient, highly suspicious and extremely pessimistic man by nature." His self-image, Sachs argued, is that he has "thought everything through in ways you could not, because I'm smarter than you." Trump, by contrast, favors speed and decisive action.
The internal dynamics around the Iran question have been tense for months. The administration held firm on its Iran redlines after a two-hour Situation Room meeting ended without a deal, and the current memorandum of understanding emerged from that same extended negotiation process, brokered in part through Pakistani mediation.
Sachs pointed to a fundamental strategic divergence. Israel, he said, wanted a broader campaign aimed at goals Jerusalem prefers, presumably including the dismantling of Iran's nuclear program and the neutralization of its proxies. But Trump's conception of a deal is "much narrower."
"Having that wish list is not the same as having a strategic goal. They haven't both committed to them as strategic goals that dictate concerted action going forward."
The timing gap may be the most dangerous fault line. Sachs noted that Netanyahu "was always prepared for the long haul." But the long haul, as Sachs put it, "is not four months; the long haul is years. Trump likes quick wins. Once the quick win did not materialize, and it did not, now you have a whole new set of problems."
That observation lands hard. The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding was supposed to be signed imminently. Instead, Israeli strikes in Beirut disrupted the timeline. Trump responded with public anger. And Netanyahu responded by distancing himself from the deal entirely.
Sachs also noted a deeper philosophical gap. Netanyahu, he said, "believes you live with a problem, you manage it, and you kick the can down the road. Trump is the opposite." And on the question of attention span, the contrast is almost cultural. Sachs observed that you "can't imagine Netanyahu spending hours at night on social media," while it is equally "hard to imagine President Trump spending hours reading [books], which Netanyahu likes to portray himself as doing."
Meanwhile, the political landscape around Iran policy has grown more complicated on Capitol Hill as well. Sen. Susan Collins recently sided with Democrats on an Iran war powers vote, breaking with GOP leadership, a reminder that even within the president's own party, the Iran question does not produce clean consensus.
Sachs framed Israel's broader predicament in blunt terms. Netanyahu and the Israeli government initially saw Trump as a leader willing to break the mold, someone who could deliver enormous benefits.
"Trump was a huge opportunity for Netanyahu because he was willing to break the mold on anything, but Israel has made a potentially strategic, historic mistake in putting all its eggs in one basket."
That basket now looks less secure. The crisis is not just about one set of airstrikes or one diplomatic spat. Sachs noted that there were "clearly [expletives used by the president] toward the prime minister on the backdrop of a joint and large military operation", a reference to Operation Epic Fury and Roaring Lion, which began on February 28.
The vice president has also been drawn into the administration's Iran deliberations. JD Vance was held at the White House as an Iran ceasefire deadline loomed and peace talks stalled, underscoring the seriousness with which the administration has treated the negotiations.
Sachs described Netanyahu as "very suspicious of everyone around him," surrounded by "this same coterie of individuals for decades." That insularity, combined with what Sachs called Netanyahu's extreme pessimism, may explain why the Israeli prime minister has been unwilling to defer to Washington's diplomatic timeline.
And geography matters. As Sachs put it: "The U.S. may turn away and be uninterested; Israel simply does not think it has that privilege." For Netanyahu, the Iranian threat is existential and permanent. For Trump, it is one of many foreign policy problems competing for attention, and one he clearly wants resolved quickly.
Netanyahu prepared to convene Israel's Security Cabinet as the fallout from the Beirut strikes continued. The specific terms of the proposed U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding remain unclear. So do the casualties and damage from the second Beirut strike, and the details of the Hezbollah attacks that Israel cited as justification.
The administration has shown it can be aggressive toward Iran when it chooses. Trump credited Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the first to back military action against Iran earlier in his term. The question now is whether the president's frustration with Netanyahu will push him toward a deal that leaves Israel's core security concerns unaddressed, or whether the two allies can find a way back to alignment before the rift becomes permanent.
What is clear is that the old assumption, that Trump would always side with Israel over Iran, no longer holds as a certainty. Netanyahu bet everything on a single relationship. When that relationship sours, there is no fallback.
Allies who put all their eggs in one basket had better make sure the man holding it doesn't get tired of carrying it.
