Daily Briefing June 2 – Trump tells Netanyahu ‘Don’t’ on striking Beirut

Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what’s happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world.

US bureau chief Jacob Magid joins host Amanda Borschel-Dan for today’s episode.

WATCH the full episode here:

Israel and Lebanon were set to hold a fresh round of talks between their ambassadors to the US on Tuesday, as Hezbollah continued to target Israeli troops in Lebanon and fresh IDF strikes were reported there. The talks come as US President Donald Trump indicated on Monday that Washington had brokered a fresh truce between Israel and Hezbollah, after the one reached in April unraveled in recent days.

Magid weighs in on US-Israeli relations after Trump reportedly fumed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a Monday call, calling the premier “fucking crazy” and telling him that everyone “hates Israel.” He demanded Israel agree to a ceasefire with the Hezbollah terror group, and US officials were quoted as saying Trump told Netanyahu that he has kept him out of prison, an apparent reference to Trump’s repeated public demand that Israeli President Isaac Herzog pardon the prime minister, who is in the midst of a lengthy corruption trial.

We also hear how Gulf states are handling the Iran war after Kuwait’s military said its air defenses responded to an “enemy” attack on Thursday.

And, Gaza mediators were set to renew disarmament talks with Hamas in Egypt on Thursday and were considering alternatives to Trump’s 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war, two Arab diplomats involved in the process told The Times of Israel.

Check out The Times of Israel’s ongoing liveblog for more updates.

For further reading:

Hezbollah and IDF trade fire despite nominal truce as Lebanon-Israel talks to resume

Trump announces fresh Lebanon truce as Netanyahu appears to call off Beirut strikes

Trump said to yell at Netanyahu: ‘You’re f**king crazy. You’d be in prison if not for me’

Ceasefire rattled as Iran targets 4 ships at Hormuz, US fires on Iran, which then targets US base

Gaza mediators to resume Hamas disarmament talks in Egypt looking to unblock impasse

Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee.

Check out yesterday’s episode here:

Today’s transcript:

Amanda Borschel-Dan: Welcome to the Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing. Today is Tuesday, June 2. I’m Amanda Borschel-Dan, here in our Jerusalem studio with US Bureau Chief Jacob Magid. Jacob, thank you so much for joining me today.

Jacob Magid: Thanks for having me, Amanda.

Borschel-Dan: It is such a pleasure. And Jacob flew here this morning through a flurry of a media storm. It was a big scandal overnight in terms of what we heard from a conversation between US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Is there a truce in Lebanon or not? We’ll hear about all of this and much more when we’re back.

And we’re back. I’m Amanda Borschel-Dan here in our Jerusalem studio for once with Jacob Magid, our US Bureau Chief. Jacob, thank you so much, of course, for joining me today. I know you’re a bit jet-lagged. Is that the word?

Magid: It wouldn’t be an episode if we didn’t talk about my lack of sleep. It’s good to be here, Amanda. It’s a real pleasure.

Borschel-Dan: Such a pleasure hosting you. And things are pretty topsy-turvy. Yesterday, as I was recording with our military correspondent Emanuel Fabian, breaking news happened in that our Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Defense Minister [Israel Katz] announced that they’re about to start strikes on Beirut. I kind of tongue-in-cheek titled yesterday’s episode, “First We Take Beaufort, Then We Take Beirut?” And in the meantime, it appears to me that US President Donald Trump has basically raised his finger [former president Joseph] Biden style and said, “Don’t.” So, can you tell us what is going on here?

President Donald Trump’s role in announcing the Israel-Lebanon ceasefire

Magid: Yeah, it was definitely pretty wild working on the desk that shift that started with these threats and seeing how that was going to play out, to announcement all of a sudden that there was a ceasefire, to silence from Netanyahu, and then details that started to come and leak out from the call that apparently didn’t go so well between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. What’s unclear is whether those threats by Prime Minister Netanyahu were just threats and meant to maybe bring Hezbollah to the table to secure that ceasefire that President Trump announced, or if he was really planning to go ahead, and President Trump, as you said, told him “don’t.”

Borschel-Dan: We definitely saw thousands in Beirut fleeing the capital. They were definitely taking the Prime Minister’s threats seriously, as one might expect. In the course of the past several months, something like 3,400 Lebanese have been killed during this ceasefire-ish period of renewed fighting. And it is a terrible situation that is being faced, both by the Lebanese and the Israelis in the North. So where do things stand right now?

Magid: It’s a good question. So if you listen to President Trump, there’s currently a ceasefire in place. But, I think the exact details are important because the president has announced in the past ceasefires that have, as you said, been very porous and haven’t extended to southern Lebanon, that there have been daily exchanges of fire between Israel and Hezbollah. So maybe Beirut has been largely unscathed. But the rest of the country is not feeling a ceasefire in Lebanon, the south, and the center. So, and we’ve seen that since even President Trump’s announcement, despite what he’s even saying, there have been continued strikes. Lebanese media has reported that Israel’s continued hitting, and also, in the late afternoon, in the early evening, and late at night, there were also reports of Israel coming under fire from Hezbollah rocket and drone fire. I think one of them was a false alarm, but it hasn’t been completely quiet since. So it’s a question of what the exact terms are. What President Trump says in his announcement is that Israel will not be entering Beirut as threatened. Those troops that were heading there were turned around, is what President Trump says. Now that, according to military officials who spoke with our correspondent Mannie Fabian, there were no troops heading to Beirut specifically.

Trump likes to dramatize things a little bit, and that’s what he did in this post. But as for Hezbollah, what Trump says is that they will not be attacking Israel, and Israel will not be attacking Hezbollah. So that would suggest there is just a full ceasefire. However, given that in the past Israel’s been allowed to target what it sees as threats, and that has led Hezbollah to respond, especially given the massive buffer zone that Israel’s created in southern Lebanon. So there’s a question of whether, actually, this all just means we’re returning to where we were a few days ago, where there wasn’t really talk of Beirut, but southern Lebanon was very much in play. And I think if you listen to Hezbollah, they’re saying that this is a full ceasefire for all of Lebanon, that we had received proposals from mediators, that Israel would only not strike in Beirut, in the suburbs, in the Dahieh area, but they would not be allowed to strike anything beyond that.

And what’s interesting is even in the statement from the Lebanese Embassy in Washington, which I guess is the Lebanese statement in this case, they also make somewhat of a differentiation. They say that the ceasefire is going to be extended to all parts, but they only specify for now, Beirut. And that would indicate that maybe it’s just a return to the pre-announcement status quo. We’re going to have to see in the coming hours and days how strict the ceasefire is. But Trump, as well, in his subsequent announcements, talks specifically about Beirut as being the thing that he doesn’t want to see lit up again.

Borschel-Dan: Right. As far as I understand it, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said something like, “We won’t shoot if Hezbollah doesn’t shoot.” So again, there’s this catch-22.

Magid: And then he says, “And our operations in southern Lebanon will continue as they were before.” So what does that mean?

Borschel-Dan: Right. So you mentioned the Lebanese embassy in DC, and in the past several months, there have been many meetings between Israel’s ambassador to the US [Yechiel Leiter] and Lebanon’s ambassador to the US [Nada Hamadeh]. We have another meeting like this set for today. I think it’s the fourth set of meetings, if I’m not mistaken. And it’s always confusing for anyone to understand why it’s Israel and Lebanon meeting together to broker some kind of ceasefire or peace deal, because it is Hezbollah who is the operator in terms of the terror being struck against Israel. So let’s talk about these talks. There was a meeting last week. Did anything come from them? What can we expect from today?

Israel-Lebanon negotiation talks

Magid: What was reported after last week’s talks, which I guess you could say is the fourth round or the fifth round, because there were three rounds that were held in April and May, and then at the third round, the decision was made to separate political and security tracks. So what we had last week, which I guess you could say is sort of the fourth round, was strictly at the Pentagon and security track. And now, today and tomorrow at the State Department is the political track. So fourth, fifth round, depending on how you call it. At the security track last week, my understanding was that there wasn’t a lot of progress made, just in that there’s only so much Lebanon can do. There’s money that they can receive from the US international community to bolster their ability to combat Hezbollah. But still, it’s a pretty major presence, as we’re seeing, that Israel’s having a hard time dealing with. So the idea that Lebanon’s going to have an easier time disarming is probably questionable at best. But the goal is to just continue to build momentum, and at least maybe not have talks for talks’ sake, but that is a real, in and of itself, a pretty big accomplishment.

But the goal was also to separate the Lebanon and Iran tracks. And that’s been something that the US has pushed. Definitely something that Israel supports, because it doesn’t want to be seen as giving Iran a say in what happens in Lebanon. But how much more could you undermine that effort by what President Trump, it seems like, did yesterday, where you had hours before this ceasefire announcement, Trump threatening to collapse the Iran talks and end them if Israeli strikes continued to expand in Lebanon? And then hours later, we had this announcement saying Israeli strikes are done in Lebanon, and President Trump basically acknowledged in phone calls that the issue that almost broke those talks up with Iran was the Lebanon issue. And he had to tell Netanyahu to stop targeting Hezbollah in order to save those talks, which are supposed to be separate in the minds of the US and Israel anyway from the Iran file. So it is a real question whether or not they’re undermined, and especially that it’s happening the day before these talks, what are they even about if, at the end of the day, all the decisions are really just being made in Tehran-Washington, and that track as opposed to Beirut-Jerusalem?

Borschel-Dan: Right. I mean, people look at Lebanon, call it a failed state or not a real country, but I think Israel likes to pride itself at least as being an autonomous nation. And so if Israel is unable to defend its own border because of diplomatic negotiations with Iran, it is a very tense and confusing period of time for Israelis, to be sure.

US support for continued fighting in Iran and Lebanon

Magid: I think on the one hand, you definitely hear that criticism coming in the media discourse, definitely in the political discourse in terms of what we’re hearing from Netanyahu’s rivals and really laying into him, and even people in the government. I think I saw [Minister of National Security] Itamar Ben-Gvir call out Netanyahu and say, “This is a time you have to say no to the president and look at how we’re losing our sovereignty here.” I do think a lot of that criticism is a little bit, especially as we head toward the elections, I don’t take it as seriously. I don’t think another prime minister would be able to be in a position after the US president joins Israel in a war with Iran to suddenly just start trying to dictate terms. The US has done a lot for Israel over the past few months. It’s very frustrating for Israelis to hear this kind of language from any president, and even President Trump. But this is the reality here. The US supports Israel in many ways, not just at the security level, but at the diplomatic level, so it can’t afford to just be doing whatever it wants, Israel is, and therefore does have to take into consideration.

I don’t think Netanyahu can say that publicly, but that’s kind of the reality, especially given how much he’s put all of his eggs in the Trump basket and really in a lot of ways bankrupted US support from the Democratic side as a result of it. But that was the strategic decision that he made. And I also will say it’s unclear whether the continued striking of Lebanon was what the goal was. If it was talking about addressing the drone threat and these fiber optic cable drones expanding further into, into Beaufort, or killing, as Netanyahu boasted, at least 8,000 Hezbollah operatives since the war has intensified, what that has actually accomplished at a strategic level to keep Israelis in the North safer, doesn’t seem to be a correlation between expansion of the fighting and actually the safety of the residents of the North. Whether that means keeping them safer will be pulling back from Lebanon or just not striking as much, I’m not sure. But this current strategy of simply expanding fire, there didn’t seem to be a correlation. And I think we’ll see in the coming days how that plays out.

Borschel-Dan: The 8,000 is since 2023, we should be clear, that intensive fighting. But the heart of Hezbollah is not in southern Lebanon. The heart is in Beirut. And so I think the tactic was to strike at the heart, meaning the very poor people who are suffering in southern Lebanon, they’re not the ones making the decisions. And so I would assume that the idea, if it really was a realistic proposal, was to strike at the leadership level. But as we’re seeing in Iran and in Hezbollah and in Gaza with Hamas, taking out the top leadership isn’t always giving us the result that we’re looking for as well.

Magid: What’s also important is if, as it seems like, given how the early hours of the ceasefire played out, Israel’s still allowed to continue striking in southern Lebanon. I think it probably doesn’t look good the way that the call played out and how we’re only reaching a ceasefire after it’s attached to Iran talks. But at the end of the day, if Israel continues to be able to strike in southern Lebanon on a regular basis, as it initially happened after the ceasefire was announced, then we’re not seeing this major concession from Israel on the ground. Yes, diplomatically, it doesn’t look great. But that’s a pretty big distinction if we’re still allowed to strike anything that is seen as a threat in southern Lebanon.

President Donald Trump’s call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Borschel-Dan: One other point from the phone call that, of course, jumped out to many, many people is the pairing that US President Donald Trump made between support for Netanyahu and keeping him out of jail, which is obviously a very personal issue for Netanyahu and not an issue of the state, meaning the fact that the president is saying, “I kept you out of jail,” that’s really problematic, shall we say.

Magid: Let’s be clear, this was a leak on the call. There were several US officials who ran quickly to speak to the Axios news site to give additional details, because if you listen to the public rhetoric about the call, you could tell it probably wasn’t great. It took Netanyahu two hours between when President Trump announced the ceasefire and when he actually issued his response. Clearly suggested Israel was not happy about this. But in this Axios report about the call, it turns out it was not at all positive, that President Trump called Netanyahu “f-ing crazy” and said, as you mentioned, “I’m doing all these things for you. I’m keeping you out of jail. You would be in jail if it weren’t for me, and this is how you’re repaying me?” Because there was a lot of frustration in the US. It recognizes that Israel has a right to respond against Hezbollah, and Hezbollah has been this major threat. But Trump specifically felt that it had gone too far in Lebanon with the strikes that had been taking place over the past few days and what was being planned.

And he lays into Netanyahu. This, you could argue, was a long time coming; that President Trump at some point was going to cash in on all this talk of Netanyahu being this wartime prime minister.

Borschel-Dan: And the pardon he requested from our president, Isaac Herzog.

Magid: Exactly. Thank you for circling back to that part, and that this is something that I just had to cover a lot of. President Trump’s calling on President [Isaac] Herzog, berating President Herzog, “You have to do this now, he’s a wartime prime minister; he needs to focus on the war, not this trial.” And now he’s saying, “Okay Bibi, now you’ve got to do what I’m asking for you to do because I’ve helped you out.” It was stunning to see in the call. Even more so, arguably, was something that he said at the back end of it, to try to convince Netanyahu that you need to do this and stop striking so much in Lebanon, he said, “Everybody hates you. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” Which kind of became like some sort of discourse between middle schoolers, “Everyone hates you.” That was the strategy Trump went with here; I don’t know if that resonated with Netanyahu. According to Axios, he didn’t really think he was in a position to start pushing back and just responded in a way saying to President Trump, look, okay, okay, we’ll do what you want, but just make sure you deliver for us. I think, as in, don’t allow Hezbollah to continue firing.

Borschel-Dan: Let’s go to a short break.

And we’re back. I am Amanda Borschel-Dan down here in our Jerusalem studio with US Bureau Chief, Jacob Magid. Jacob, again, thank you so much for being here. Always a pleasure to give you a big hug in person, as promised.

Magid: Also here for my tote bag.

Borschel-Dan: Oh, the tote bag. I know a person who knows a person. No problem. So, Jacob, let’s turn to the Gulf States. And of course, the war is not over for them, really. We’ve heard reports of strikes on and from several of the Gulf States over the past several days. So tell us what’s happening a bit.

War impacts on the Gulf States and mediation efforts

Magid: That’s correct. Before President Trump’s announcement of this Lebanon truce, extension, whatever you want to call it, there was an exchange of fire between Iran and Kuwait, which hadn’t been one of the countries that was known to be attacking Iran. We knew about the UAE [United Arab Emirates]. There have been reports that were sort of denied about Saudi Arabia, but Kuwait was seen as a little bit in the middle, in terms of the other Gulf countries, of where they saw the Iran threat and how to respond. And I think coming under attack again, that was a step too far for them and led to them hitting back at Iran. In terms of how the Gulf States are thinking about this, again, it’s not a monolith. We’re seeing how the war has even further driven a wedge between some of these countries, mainly the UAE and Saudi Arabia. And I think that will be something that we’re going to be likely seeing and talking about in the months to come, that rift that I don’t think has been brushed aside as a result of this war. And why I mentioned there are these differences. I think it’s a spectrum, but it seems like in some ways that we’re back to how we were toward the beginning of the war, where the preference at this point is for this to wrap up.

Even from the UAE, there was a feeling that President Trump was not willing to go all the way and go and finish the job, as one UAE official said to me That would have required weeks, if not months, more fighting that I don’t think President Trump wanted to see the ramifications for the US economy, also probably the global economy as well, heading into these midterms. And that, therefore, the thought was that he was only willing to go as far as carrying out more symbolic strikes on energy sites that weren’t going to move the needle with Iran, because they hadn’t in the first 40 days of fighting, that it needed something much more substantial than that. And if it was just going to be some sort of symbolic, showy strike of energy sites, that leads to them being attacked on their own energy sites. And if nothing’s going to come from that, they would rather just see the war stop for now and try to cut our losses in some ways, and not allow Iran to be seen as the overwhelming victor here. That was a feeling that I think a lot of them had, and as a result, they were pushing for a truce.

And we saw that mediation efforts from Gulf countries like Qatar are involved in trying to bring this to an end, not that we’re for sure there yet. President Trump was quick to say that talks are progressing very quickly after the announcement was made, and again, he’s talking about within the week, we’re going to have a deal. But he said, I believe it was May 24, so nine or so days ago, that a deal was largely negotiated. It sounded like it was hours away. I’m sure if we were talking about this on the podcast, that was the assumption. So I don’t think you can take that timeline with more than a grain of salt. But it seems like we’re on the track again. And I think that’s what the Gulf States would prefer at this point to try to stabilize things. Of course, they don’t trust Iran to varying degrees, but there wasn’t a feeling that if there was a resumption of the war, that it was going to actually, in the way that the US was willing to handle it, when it was going to lead to some major strategic shift between the countries.

Borschel-Dan: Of course, everyone is looking at the Gaza peace treaty as some kind of model for what could happen here with Iran and how things may play out. And it’s possible that Trump himself is trying to tie up a little more of the loose ends, because as we see in Gaza, the loose ends are becoming looser and looser. And it’s quite possible that we’re heading towards an increased conflict there, a military conflict. So you have an update for us about where things stand with Gaza.

Gaza post-war talks in Cairo with the Board of Peace

Magid: That’s correct. So we’re likely talking about having another round of talks, talking about more talks in Cairo between some of these mediating countries and the Board of Peace, that US-led body that’s overseeing the post-war management of Gaza. Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey are also going to be sending representatives to Cairo. That likely will happen on Thursday. We haven’t had these talks in a while with Nikolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace envoy leading the efforts. They haven’t made a lot of progress. There was this disarmament proposal that was made to Hamas that Hamas has largely rejected, given excuses for why it’s not in a place to accept it at the moment, and says that Israel needs to actually start abiding by the terms of the first phase before we can start talking about disarmament second phase issues. Now, the issue is that they haven’t finished their leadership elections. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think that’s a reason to push these off longer. And they’ll likely raise those issues. But I think they don’t want to be seen as the main obstacle right now. So they’re going to come to Cairo and at least have discussions.

But they’re on the verge, according to one Arab diplomat I spoke with, of just cutting off ties completely with Nickolay Mladenov. They’re very frustrated with how he has really put the blame mainly on Hamas and said that’s what’s preventing Gaza from being rebuilt. Yes, Israel is making lots of violations with strikes and the way it’s moving the Yellow Line, and now talking about taking over 70% of Gaza, and if not more. But what really can help move things along is if Hamas just agrees to disarmament. They don’t like that rhetoric. And I think they’re emboldened by the dynamic in Iran to say that we can just stop talking to the Board of Peace Envoy if we want. And that is something I think I’d look out for. To see if they do decide to cut him off completely and just decide to work through the other mediators directly and not meet with Mladenov. But for now, that meeting is supposed to happen on Thursday. I think if that doesn’t work out, you’ll hear more talk of separating Gaza between Green Zone that is controlled by the Israelis and Red Zone that is controlled by Hamas and only try to see if we can get some reconstruction going on the Green Zone and hope that we can convince Gazans to move there afterwards because everyone else is packed into this less than 30% of the Strip, two million people there, not on the Israeli side.

So if you focus on the Green Zone, maybe that will pressure Hamas to come to the table. That, I think, is an idea that you’re going to start hearing a little bit more of if Hamas continues to say no and does so on Thursday.

Borschel-Dan: Jacob, we have so much more to discuss, and we will hopefully, on Sunday, since you’re still going to be in the region. So, thank you so much for joining me today.

Magid: Thank you very much. Looking forward.

Borschel-Dan: Thanks for listening to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing. Please check out another episode tomorrow. This episode was produced by Yitzchak Ledee. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, please drop us an email to podcast@timesofisrael.com. Until tomorrow, shalom.