President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone on Wednesday for the first time in more than 50 days.
It came after fresh tensions emerged in their relationship: Netanyahu refused to approve his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s trip to the U.S. on Tuesday until Biden called him.
The call came together in short order after that.
Netanyahu spoke with former President Trump earlier Wednesday before he spoke with Biden. Vice President Kamala Harris joined the call along with the president.
It comes as Israel has been weighing its options to retaliate for the barrage of missiles Iran fired toward the Jewish state last week.
Gallant warned on Wednesday the Israeli response was sure to catch Iran by surprise.
“As we have shown until now in this war and in all arenas – whoever attacks Israel will pay a price. Our strike will be powerful, precise, and above all – surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened,” he told the IDF’s intelligence unit in a briefing.
Biden has warned Netanyahu to make sure his response is “proportional” and to avoid hitting Iran’s nuclear facilities.
The longtime relationship between the two men soured in the months that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks.
Further indication of their mutual disdain came on the one-year anniversary of the attacks, when Biden called Israeli President Isaac Herzog over Netanyahu.
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Since the world leaders’ last call, Israel has launched an aggressive offensive operation in Lebanon, and successfully taken out top Hezbollah leadership over a short timeframe.
Israeli airstrikes killed the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and now his successor too, according to Netanyahu.
Netanyahu is also known to be distrusting of his defense minister, who he’s tried to fire twice. Gallant has publicly criticized Netanyahu for not articulating a postwar plan for Gaza.
In a particularly heated April phone call, Biden asked Netanyahu, “What’s your strategy, man?” according to Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward in his new book, “War.”
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Netanyahu, at the time, said Israel had to go into Rafah, a Gaza-Egypt border city, that he claimed to be a Hamas stronghold.
“Bibi, you’ve got no strategy,” Biden reportedly told Netanyahu, who he also allegedly claimed “doesn’t give a damn” about Hamas and “only about himself.”
After Israel entered Rafah, Biden said of Netanyahu: “He’s a f—ing liar.”
“That son of a b—-, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy,” said Biden privately, according to Woodward. “He’s a bad f—ing guy!”
Biden said he felt, in Woodward’s accounting, that Netanyahu “had been lying to him regularly.” With Netanyahu “continuing to say he was going to kill every last member of Hamas.” Woodward wrote, “Biden had told him that was impossible, threatening both privately and publicly to withhold offensive U.S. weapons shipments.”
