Mereja.Forum

[Zmeselo]

News | Israel's war on Lebanon
'Everybody hates you': Trump yells at Netanyahu over Lebanon escalation

US president reportedly told Netanyahu that he is 'fucking crazy' in an expletive-laden call after Iran suspended talks over planned attacks on Beirut


Trump points his finger towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, US on 29 December, 2025 (Reuters)

By MEE staff

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ever ... escalation

2 June 2026

US https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us President Donald Trump reportedly told Israeli https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he is "fucking crazy" and that

everybody hates Israel,

after Iran https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/iran suspended peace talks over Tel Aviv's plans to renew an assault on the Lebanese https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/lebanon capital, Beirut.

American officials cited by Axios described the call as "expletive-laden," saying Trump had "steamrolled" Netanyahu, warning him that further attacks on Lebanon https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/midd ... es/lebanon would isolate Israel internationally.

Summarising Trump's comments, the official said:

I'm saving your [deleted]. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.

A second source said that at one point during the call, Trump yelled:

What the [deleted] are you doing?

Two officials reported that the US president accused Netanyahu of "ingratitude" for keeping him out of prison - an apparent reference to the Israeli leader's ongoing corruption trial and Trump's public calls for Netanyahu to be pardoned.

The call came shortly after Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said its negotiating team had

suspended talks and message exchange through mediators

over Netanyahu's announcement of further attacks on Dahieh, Beirut's southern suburb.

Initially, Trump said of Iran's suspension of the talks:

I don't care if they're over, honestly...I really don't care. I couldn't care less.

Following the call, Trump announced on social media that:

There will be no Troops going to Beirut, and any Troops that are on their way, have already been turned back.

He added that he had a

very good call with Hezbollah

about the implementation of a ceasefire.

They agreed that all shooting will stop - That Israel will not attack them, and they will not attack Israel.

Hezbollah member of parliament Hassan Fadlallah said in a statement on Monday that the group supports a "full ceasefire" throughout all of Lebanon, adding it would be a precursor to an Israeli troop withdrawal from all Lebanese territory.

Fadlallah added that Hezbollah rejected a partial truce offer that would spare Beirut from strikes in return for a halt to Hezbollah's attacks in northern Israel.

The Lebanese presidency confirmed later on Monday that Hezbollah agreed to a US proposal on a

mutual cessation of attacks

that would expand across all of Lebanon.

Netanyahu, however, said Israel's

stance... remains unchanged.

I spoke with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not cease attacking our cities and citizens - Israel will attack terror targets in Beirut. This stance of ours remains unchanged,

the Israeli prime minister said on X.

Trump told NBC https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/trump ... 4293957594 that he has not heard directly from Iran since the suspension of talks.

I think we’ve been talking too much if you want to know the truth. I think going silent would be very good, and that could be for a long time.

It doesn’t mean we’re going to go and start dropping bombs all over there. We’ll just go silent. We’ll keep the blockade. Blockade is a piece of steel.

He later wrote on social media that talks with Iran are continuing

at a rapid pace.

[Zmeselo]

EXCLUSIVE: National Security
Pentagon raised threat of Israeli spying on U.S. to highest level, sources say

The counterintelligence threat level was raised by the Defense Intelligence Agency in recent weeks after growing concerns that Israeli espionage had become more aggressive than usual, sources say.


President Donald Trump Israeli and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speak after Netanyahu addressed the Knesset, Israel's parliament, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Jerusalem. Chip Somodevilla / Pool via AP file

June 6, 2026

By Gordon Lubold, Courtney Kube and Dan De Luce

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nation ... rcna348565

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is increasingly concerned about Israel ramping up its spying on the U.S., recently raising the counterintelligence threat level from America’s top ally in the Middle East to the highest level, according to two U.S. officials and one former U.S. official.

The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency in recent weeks issued the new counterintelligence threat assessment amid rising tensions between Israel and the U.S. over the way forward in the war with Iran, https://www.nbcnews.com/world/iran-war the officials said. They said the DIA posted an internal message, viewed by one of the current officials, that raised the level for Israel to “critical.”

The designation stems from concerns within the Pentagon that Israel is making a particular effort to surveil top U.S. officials to get information on the Trump administration’s internal deliberations and decision-making on the conflicts in the Middle East, the officials said.

The DIA assessment includes a seven-page document and features a chart, according to one of the current U.S. officials. The document says the assessment of Israel is that its ability to conduct human espionage and technical collection is at a ”critical level,” according to the official.

It also identifies a series of specific incidents that heightened U.S. concerns, the official said.

A spokesperson for the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., said in a statement that it is “completely false” that Israel spies on the U.S.

Israel does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone US government officials,

the spokesperson said.

Israel intelligence collection efforts are aimed at its enemies, not its allies. Any claims to the contrary are either misinformed or politically motivated.

The Pentagon declined to comment.

A White House official said in a statement,

This entire story is false and sourced to someone who doesn’t have any knowledge of what’s going on.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees all the U.S. intelligence agencies including the DIA, did not respond to a request for comment.

While it is commonplace for allies and adversaries across the globe to spy on each other, the current and former U.S. officials said Israel’s recent efforts have gone well beyond what is typical and expected espionage. The officials did not know if a specific incident triggered the DIA’s decision to raise the counterintelligence threat level.

The heightened alert comes as President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have clashed over the war with Iran and Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, including in a tense phone call https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/ ... 4460357616 this past week, NBC News reported. Trump acknowledged afterward to reporters that he called Netanyahu “crazy” during the call as questions mount about whether the two countries’ objectives https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nation ... rcna264383 in the Middle East are beginning to significantly diverge.

Since a ceasefire went into place in early April, Trump has been pursuing a diplomatic deal with Iran to end the war Israel and the U.S. launched on Feb. 28. Israel has publicly expressed skepticism https://www.cnbc.com/2026/05/10/netanya ... usive.html that Iran would abide by any negotiated deal. Netanyahu has pushed for a resumption of bombing raids against Iran and disagreed with Trump, who has pressed him to scale back https://apnews.com/article/lebanon-hezb ... 2b95514f97 attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to Western officials.

Israel is keenly interested in whether Trump decides to resume major combat operations against Iran or to end the conflict, the current and former U.S. officials and outside experts said.

The most practical outcome for the Pentagon is that U.S. officials will use extra caution when traveling to Israel or visiting with Israeli officials, the current and former U.S. officials said. They said there did not appear to be any impact on the high-level intelligence-sharing that occurs on a daily basis between the two countries, particularly associated with the war in Iran.

The U.S. already takes extra precautions when visiting Israel,

one of the current U.S. officials said.

They’re well-known to aggressively collect.

The U.S., like other countries, maintains elaborate counterintelligence or “spy catcher” efforts to prevent and track espionage by foreign adversaries as well as by allies and partners, seeking to safeguard state secrets and monitor attempts to recruit or coerce U.S. officials. Under U.S. law, https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence the FBI has the leading role in counter-intelligence efforts, but they also involve a range of government agencies and the military.

According to current and former diplomats and former national security officials, Israel for years has had a reputation for aggressive espionage even against the U.S., its closest ally. It’s a practice that has long raised concerns among national security and diplomatic officials, and U.S. intelligence officials closely monitor the issue, according to experts and the current and former U.S. officials.

Top U.S. officials often take extra care when traveling to Israel, sometimes using burner phones and computers and extreme caution when speaking in hotel rooms during official trips, the current and former U.S. officials and experts said.

Israel has

a hyper-aggressive intelligence service,

said Emily Harding, vice president of the Defense and Security Department and director of the intelligence, national security and technology program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.

They are exceedingly interested in what we are up to,

Harding said of the Israelis.

In the 1980s, spying by Israel caused a rift with Washington, with U.S. Navy intelligence analyst Jonathan Pollard spending 30 years in prison after he was found to have sold suitcases of top-secret documents to Israel.

The U.S. also spies on its allies and seeks to gather intelligence on foreign partners, as evidenced in 2013 by leaks from intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.

Those leaks showed that the U.S. was eavesdropping on European leaders, including then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone, sparking outrage in Berlin.

The U.S. and Israel remain close allies and the two countries’ intelligence services have forged a close, working relationship over decades. But concerns about possible Israeli espionage at such a sensitive moment — when the two governments are not in full agreement about the war with Iran — carry the risk of undermining trust between the two countries, two additional former U.S. officials said.


Gordon Lubold is a national security reporter for NBC News.