STORY: :: Archive

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long portrayed himself as being adept in dealing with Donald Trump.

But an acrimonious phone-call this week with the U.S. President, in which Trump is said to have called Netanyahu effing crazy, has laid bare tensions between the two leaders.

:: Pod Force One/New York Post

"...At some point, I said, 'Bibi, we got to stop this..."

Israeli officials have acknowledged that it was the most heated phone call yet.

Yet while one official dismissed any suggestion of a material change in the pair's relationship...

another said it had politically damaged Netanyahu, ahead of elections later this year.

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Netanyahu, Israel's longest serving prime minister, has repeatedly clashed with Republican and Democratic administrations.

Yet, Israel has remained Washington's closest Middle East ally.

But Nimrod Goren, the president of Mitvim, an Israeli think tank, says "the differences are now very public,"...

unlike in the past when they were usually quietly managed behind closed doors.

Following their call, Trump said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to stop shooting each other.

But it prompted accusations by Netanyahu's political opponents, and some within his own government, that he had ceded Israel's sovereignty to the U.S.

The wars with Iran and Hezbollah have been widely popular in Israel, including among supporters of Netanyahu's political rivals.

Much of the public wants the fighting to continue.

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That stands in contrast to the U.S., where many voters - including members of Trump's conservative base - oppose the war.

Recent polls show that Netanyahu's coalition government, the most right-wing in the country's history, could fail to win a majority at the next election.

According to think tanker Goren, Netanyahu is working to accommodate Trump's demands as he hopes the president's support will work in his electoral favor.

But he adds that some Israelis were not comfortable with the extent Trump appears able to influence Israeli military decisions.

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In contrast, in the U.S., some Trump critics say that Netanyahu holds outsized influence over U.S. foreign policy.

Since the U.S. and Israel opened the war with Iran, Netanyahu has at times said that he speaks with Trump almost daily,...

Often characterizing their relationship to the Israeli public as one between peers who make decisions together.