SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
This week, like so many others, has been characterized by a back-and-forth between Iran, the United States and Israel. There's the fragile ceasefire, the bursts of fighting and the ongoing efforts to get a final deal. That, as Israel wages a war in Lebanon that is likely to interfere with any type of final agreement to end the war between the U.S., Israel and Iran. What has been new this week is a widening gulf between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Those frustrations burst into public view this week amidst reports of a fiery phone call between the two men. So what is the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship, and how does the past influence where things go? Those are the questions I put to NPR's national security correspondent Greg Myre and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez on NPR's national security podcast, Sources & Methods.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMANUEL KALLINS AND STEPHEN TELLER'S "PLUNGED INTO CRISIS")
DETROW: We are at this point where Trump is frustrated with Netanyahu. Trump has done so much for Netanyahu that Netanyahu has pushed the U.S. government to do for a very long time - among them, moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, inviting him repeatedly to D.C., lobbying other officials in Israel to pardon him, you know, entering into a war with him. Has Trump gotten anything in return from all of that?
FRANCO ORDOÑEZ, BYLINE: Yeah, I mean, look, support for Israel is very big in American politics. It's particularly big in the GOP, among the Republican Party, and it's even bigger among white Christian evangelicals. And this is a massive, or a very big, part of Trump's base. So clearly, this is a very important, you know, constituency that Trump is speaking to. He's always speaking to his base. He always puts them first in most political decisions. But I will say, some of those dynamics are changing, particularly among young voters and more populist (ph) voters who are, you know, growing weary of all this foreign intervention.
DETROW: Yeah.
ORDOÑEZ: And you're starting to see that. So...
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: The Tucker Carlson wing of conservatives.
ORDOÑEZ: The Tucker Carlson, the Marjorie Taylor Greene wing - but, you know, kind of a broader swath of Americans too. I mean, I was actually talking with Aaron David Miller, who served vice presidents in both Democratic and Republican administrations. This is how he kind of described it to me.
AARON DAVID MILLER: And you have an American public that no longer sees Israel as David. Israel is now Goliath.
DETROW: Greg, what's the best way to think about how the relationship between the U.S. and Israel has changed?
MYRE: Yeah, so it's been a close relationship on many levels, particularly the military level, but it does have these real moments of tension that we've seen this week. This is by no means unprecedented. I'm thinking back in the early 1990s, when Jim Baker was secretary of state, very frustrated with the Israelis. He was testifying before Congress, and he really just sort of snapped. And he said...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMES BAKER III: If that's going to be the approach and that's going to be the attitude, there won't be any dialogue, and there won't be any peace.
MYRE: ...When the Israelis are ready for peace, they can call me at this number. And then he read out the White House number.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BAKER: 202-456-1414 - when you're serious about peace, call us.
MYRE: We've seen Netanyahu frustrate almost every president, certainly the Democratic presidents, with his resistance or outright refusal to engage in negotiations or serious negotiations...
DETROW: Right.
MYRE: ...With the Palestinians.
DETROW: And I know you interviewed former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak. What did he have to say about the current wars?
MYRE: Yeah. So, you know, I wanted to talk to him because he was the prime minister in 2000 who pulled Israel out of south Lebanon after an 18-year occupation. And he said that, you know, he had been thinking about this for 15 years, since the mid-1980s.
EHUD BARAK: You know, I sometimes asked, why did you pull the - out the soldier from the security zone in 2000? And I said, the right question is not why I did it in 2000, why it was not done 15 years earlier because for me, it was a stretched tragedy, that there's no explanation in a rational way.
MYRE: It was interesting because Israel and Hezbollah have fought repeatedly since then. He took a lot of criticism for that. There were supporters, a lot of Israelis who thought it was time to get out of Lebanon, and others who said, that's only going to encourage Hezbollah and that they will continue to fight. And that indeed has been the case. But he said it was still the right thing to do now. He said he would even support some limited actions in Lebanon now because Israel needs to protect its communities in the north. But it shouldn't be a long-term thing. He thinks there are opportunities to work with the Lebanese government and others in the region to curb Hezbollah and that that's the way it should be approached, that you're - Israel is never going to completely eradicate Hezbollah.
DETROW: Franco, when it comes to shifting public opinion on Israeli policy and how much that's really started to reshape American politics, the ultimate leverage that President Trump has over Prime Minister Netanyahu is, as we were talking before, American military aid to Israel. That has always been such a political live wire when other presidents have hinted at possibly restricting it or pausing it. President Biden, you know, never ultimately did that but certainly got a lot of criticism when it would come up as a proposal. What is stopping Trump from potentially at some point, if he can't get Israel on the same page about Iran, from making that same threat?
ORDOÑEZ: The Republican Party still largely supports Israel in many of these different ways. We talked about the white evangelical Christians. And I think it would be a pretty big break for Trump to kind of pull that away and to pull that support or even threaten that kind of support.
DETROW: To that end, Greg, does Israel need U.S. support to continue its military actions in Lebanon or Iran?
MYRE: Oh, absolutely - particularly if it were to be in Iran, Israel depends on U.S. defensive systems to shoot down missiles, perhaps even drones. So that piece of it is very critical. Israel could still conduct its operations in Lebanon to some extent the way it has in Gaza, at least in the short term. But, Scott, if Israel is bombing Lebanon, they're doing it with American-made planes like F-16s and F-35s. They're using American weapons that have been provided by the American taxpayer. So certainly in the longer term, to keep up any sustained operations, Israel is heavily dependent on U.S. weapons and military assistance.
DETROW: That was NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre and White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez. We were talking on NPR's weekly national security podcast, Sources & Methods. You can listen to our full episode wherever you get your podcasts.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMANUEL KALLINS AND STEPHEN TELLER'S "PLUNGED INTO CRISIS") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
