President Trump ripped former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for congratulating Joe Biden on his presidential “win.” In a recorded interview shared with Axios with Barak Ravid for his book, “Trump’s Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East,” Trump said that Netanyahu was a “man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with…Bibi should have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake.”
During President Trump’s time in the White House, he struck the historic Abraham Accords, which brokered a peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates in 2020. The fact that Netanyahu congratulated Biden on taking the White House apparently felt like a betrayal to President Trump, especially after the tremendous amount of work his administration did for Israel. “He was very early — like, earlier than most [congratulating Biden]. I haven’t spoken to him since,” Trump stated in the interview. He added succinctly, “F**k him.”
Previously, President Trump had promised the American people that he would move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem while he was in the White House, and he delivered on that promise in 2019. Trump shared his thoughts on what he perceived to be Netanyahu’s political betrayal: “For Bibi Netanyahu, before the ink was even dry, to do a message, and not only a message, to do a tape to Joe Biden talking about their great, great friendship — they didn’t have a friendship, because if they did, [the Obama administration] wouldn’t have done the Iran deal. And guess what, now they’re going to do it again.”
Netanyahu, in response to Trump’s fiery comments regarding his decision to congratulate Biden on winning the White House – despite countless, nationwide reports of voter fraud and election irregularities that have not been resolved yet – said in a Friday statement shared with The Hill that he highly appreciated “President Trump’s big contribution to Israel and its security. I also appreciate the importance of the strong alliance between Israel and the U.S. and therefore it was important for me to congratulate the incoming President.”
Regardless of the political rift that seems to have arisen between Netanyahu and President Trump, the inarguable fact remains that Trump did indeed step in to aid Israel during his time in office, from moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem to recognizing occupied Golan Heights as Israeli territory, arguably rightfully earning Trump the popular nickname, “President of Peace.”