Trump Scolds Israel Over “Vicious” Attack in Lebanon as MOU Was About to be Signed

President Trump finally unloaded on Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the brutal attacks in Lebanon that are supposed to be killing Hezbollah terrorists but also kill civilians en masse.

Speaking from the G7 meeting in Évian-les-Bain, France, Trump told reporters that he’d rather see Syria take on the terror outfit because the Israeli Defense Force kills too many people when it hits buildings in which it suspects the terrorists are hiding.

As well, Trump said, he’s unhappy with Israel because of those attacks. Netanyahu, he said, must be “more responsible” in handling Lebanon.

But Trump’s admonition, former GOP U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene says, means Trump knows that Israel is murdering civilians.

Let Syria Handle Hezbollah

Asked whether he was frustrated with Netanyahu, Trump said no, but qualified that “no” by saying it was time for Netanyahu and the IDF to restrain themselves.

“We have a great relationship,” Trump said, but “I didn’t like that he did an attack based on a … you know, there’s a very minor little thing with some drones that were released, and he ends up …  I saw that attack. I saw where that bomb went.… That was a vicious [attack]. It was too much.”

Trump also observed the obvious: “Without the United States there would be no Israel,” Trump said. But he didn’t stop there:

Without me, there would be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did.… Israel would have been blown up a long time ago, had I not gotten involved.

Trump also said Israel’s fight against Hezbollah has gone on “too long and too many people are being killed.”

“You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody because there are a lot of people with those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you,” Trump said:

And I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah.… I think they’d do a better job of doing it … and I didn’t like where two hours before we’re signing the agreement that there was an attack in … Beirut.… I did not like that. I let them know that.… If Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else … Syria will do the job.

Reaction

Israel First neoconservative armchair warrior Mark Levin, who fights America’s wars from behind a microphone in an air-conditioned studio, blew up like an Israeli bomb hitting a hospital in Gaza.

He didn’t much care for Trump’s remarks about Syria.

“The former al-Qaeda terrorist who now runs Syria and has been slaughtering Christians is preferred to deal with Hezbollah in Lebanon?” he asked of Ahmed al-Sharaa, the former al-Qaeda leader who forces ousted former President Bashar al-Assad:

Just now Iran said no deal unless Israel leaves southern Lebanon. So they got the message.

Of course, Lebanon has said Iran doesn’t call the shots in Lebanon and is trying to drag them into a deal to protect Hezbollah. Yep.

Meanwhile, none of us have seen the MOU. Israel says it has not seen the MOU. Qatar, Pakistan, and Iran have seen it and helped negotiate it.

Taylor Greene noted that Trump inadvertently admitted that he knew Israel was killing civilians indiscriminately.

“Proof President Trump knows Israel is murdering innocent people, children, and Christians in Lebanon and he’s doing nothing to stop it,” she wrote on X over video of Trump’s remarks:

He should stop all military and financial aid to Israel, that will stop them from slaughtering thousands of innocents.

Israel Will Do What It Wants

As The New American reported yesterday, top Israeli officials said they’ll attack Hezbollah when they want, and will not withdraw from “security zones” in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon, the U.S.-Iranian memorandum of understanding regardless. Those “security zones” are more likely permanently annexed territories, apropos of the Greater Israel Project.

“We must not compromise on anything less than the dismantling of Hezbollah, we must not withdraw from any territory that our fighters have captured and cleared of terror infrastructure, we must not return to a situation where thousands of terrorists sit on the fences of northern settlements, and certainly we must not remain silent for a moment in the face of fire directed at the State of Israel,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X:

The days are over when the Jew took blows and kept silent. Never again!

Defense Minister Israel Katz said much the same thing. “The IDF will continue to defend our borders and our citizens from the peak of Mount Hermon, the mountains of Lebanon, the areas of our land in the Samaria region, and most of the territory of Gaza,” he said.

In a lengthy statement on X, Netanyahu also said the conquered territories were now Israel’s.

“The struggle is not over and done,” he said:

We will need to maintain our vigilance, remain strong and determined to defend ourselves as required. This is true not only vis-à-vis Iran. This is also true vis-à-vis Iran’s terror proxies, which we have hit in an unprecedented manner. We did it in Gaza, we did it in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, we did it in the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria — we did it everywhere.…

We established deep security zones around the State of Israel. We did it in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Syria — where, by the way, we destroyed all the weaponry of the Assad army, which was a central link in the Axis of Evil. And I wish to clarify: we will remain in the security zones for as long as it is required to defend our country.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry responded. Because Israel doesn’t attack militarily without consulting the United States, Iran will hold the United States responsible if Israel attacks Lebanon, which would violate the memorandum of understanding. 

The 60-day ceasefire in the MOU includes Lebanon, which means that Israel must not attack.

Middle East Eye reported today that the MOU “includes a provision for dealing with possible ceasefire violations in Lebanon by Israel.”