President Donald Trump has demanded peace between Iran and Israel in a bizarre fashion.
His Middle East ceasefire took a beating when the two nations got embroiled in tit-for-tat strikes on Sunday into Monday. The timing was awkward: Trump had insisted in an interview with the Financial Times that he is the one who “calls the shots.”
He told Axios that he would call up Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demand that Israel refrain from returning fire on Iran. It is unclear if Trump called the Israeli leader, but what is clear is that Netanyahu went against his wishes, wrapping up a damaging weekend for Trump.
As missiles flew from Israel into Iran and vice versa on Monday morning, Trump came up with a diplomatic masterstroke: a grammatically questionable demand-cum-plea to stop the fighting.
“Israel and Iran must immediately stop ‘shooting,’” he wrote in a post sent out at 5:36 a.m., putting the word “shooting” in speech marks for some reason. “President DONALD J. TRUMP,” he concluded his short message in all-caps.
About an hour later, he expanded. “Both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE!” he claimed, despite the bombing on Monday morning.
He further claimed that the talks are in the final stages. “Final negotiations on ‘Peace’ are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way. The Blockade will remain in place, and in full force and effect, until a ‘Final Deal’ is reached. Things should move quickly,” he said.
Elsewhere, during a sleepless posting session, he claimed, without any evidence, that ongoing election counts in California are rigged and trumpeted similar claims about the 2020 presidential election.
It comes after another of Trump’s public pleas was excruciatingly snubbed. Just hours after he said he was going to call up Netanyahu to block retaliatory Israeli strikes on Sunday, the Israeli Prime Minister launched them anyway.
“I am going to call Bibi right now and tell him not to retaliate. Each of them had their fun. Israel had its strike, and Iran had its strike. We don’t need another one,” Trump said in the Axios phone interview, before telling Fox News something similar.
The move by Netanyahu, which will embarrass and no doubt infuriate Trump, followed the decision by Tehran to launch missiles at Israel in retaliation for Israel’s earlier attack on Beirut, Lebanon. It is unlikely that Trump’s Truth Social post will solve this multi-nation conundrum.
Trump said he was “not happy” about the Israeli strikes in Lebanon, adding that they were “not coordinated with the U.S.”
Before Israel’s response to the Iranian strikes, Trump appeared to recognize that he was losing control of his already strained peace talks. “I don’t want it to blow up because of what is happening now,” he told Axios.
Netanyahu’s decision comes at a critical juncture in peace talks and at a testing time in his relationship with Trump. The president reportedly blew up at Bibi over military action in Lebanon, which has threatened the already faltering peace talks with Tehran.
Trump admitted that he called him “effing crazy” and accused him of ingratitude during a phone call last Monday.
“I wouldn’t say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know,” he told the New York Post’s Pod Force One.
Trump added: “I like Bibi a lot. And I work very well with him.”
Netanyahu’s go-it-alone attitude is threatening to shatter the U.S.-Israel alliance, and perhaps the faint chance of imminent peace in the region, too.
