Analysis Was Trump oblivious to the realities of Netanyahu's promised 'easy' war on Iran? [View all]

Peter Beaumont
Senior international correspondent

Senior US officials consider the PM’s pitch to have been overblown, creating potentially far-reaching consequences for Israel

When Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club on 29 December last year, the Israeli prime minister came with an appeal – and a not so subtle inducement.

After months of restocking air defence and other missiles after June’s 12-day conflict in which the US joined in to bomb Tehran’s nuclear facilities, Israel was ready to go again, this time with more substantial objectives.

In the press conference hosted by the two leaders, Trump appeared to dutifully echo familiar talking points of Netanyahu’s. “Now I hear that Iran is trying to build up again,” Trump said. “Then we are going to have to knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them. But hopefully, that’s not happening.”

The Israeli leader, like others before him, had come armed with an appeal to Trump’s ego: the award of his country’s top honour, the Israel Prize, rarely given to non-Israelis, for his “tremendous contributions to Israel and the Jewish people”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/06/trump-iran-war-netanyahu-israel