Complex relationship between Trump and Netanyahu continues to undermine Middle East ceasefire

‘I call all the shots’: US president Donald Trump on his relationship with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after latest hostilities between Iran and Israel. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun & Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen ‘I call all the shots’: US president Donald Trump on his relationship with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu after latest hostilities between Iran and Israel. Photograph: Ronen Zvulun & Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images Analysis Complex relationship between Trump and Netanyahu continues to undermine Middle East ceasefire Julian Borger Senior international correspondent Recent exchange of missiles between Iran and Israel highlights diverging views between US president and Israeli PM The latest eruption of hostilities between Iran and Israel appears to have been contained for now after Donald Trump insisted he called “all the shots” in the Middle East, but in a dangerously fragile region Benjamin Netanyahu has again shown he is ready to take shots of his own. The exchange of missiles on Sunday and Monday was ample demonstration of the inherent instability of the current limbo between war and peace, but it also shone a bright light on the complex and conflicted relationship between the US president and the Israeli prime minister, frenemies who could determine the fate of the current ceasefire. Trump went out of his way on Sunday to stress that he was the dominant partner in the relationship. “I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots,” he told the Financial Times . Less than a week earlier, the White House had leaked details of a foul-mouthed tirade from Trump, telling Netanyahu he was “crazy”, suggesting he did not know what he was doing, and informing him “everybody hates you now”. The tongue-lashing was reportedly aimed at warning Netanyahu against attacking Beirut in his pursuit of Hezbollah , a red line for Iran in terms of what it considered a violation of the broader regional ceasefire. Trump routinely uses public humiliation in response to any perceived insubordination. Against Netanyahu, it worked for less than a week. After a string of Israeli casualties in Lebanon over the weekend, the prime minister ordered the bombing of the Hezbollah stronghold in the southern Beirut district of Dahiyeh on Sunday, triggering a salvo of Iranian missiles aimed at Israel in response. Despite managing to intercept the incoming projectiles and Trump’s urging not to retaliate, Netanyahu ordered a response in kind: missile strikes against targets in Iran . The exchanges spilled into Monday morning before both sides declared a halt so Trump could declare the ceasefire back on track, with a blockade kept in place on the strait of Hormuz, “until a ‘Final Deal’ is reached. “Things should move quickly,” Trump promised on his Truth Social platform, in a well-worn assurance he has offered repeatedly over the past two months of the ceasefire – with diminishing impact on global oil prices. Trump and Ne