Numerous News reports have been published this week about a phone conversation between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu that took place sometime during the weekend of November 7-8.
The Times of India quoted Israeli media outlet Ynet as saying it was a “shouting match from Hell.” Other publications from the New York Post to several Israeli newspapers described the call as “angry” or “explosive.”
Apparently, the President has finally realized that “Netanyahu is not our friend” as the Jewish New York Times columnist, Thomas Friedman, wrote in May of 2025.
Unfortunately, in President Trump’s case, this realization came far too late and only after Netanyahu and his billionaire American supporters misled the President into an unnecessary and ultimately disastrous war in Iran.
The weekend “explosive” phone call was another of several from Netanyahu urging (demanding?) Trump to restart and even expand this stupid war that led to the defeat of so many Republicans on November 3.
I have campaigned for every Republican candidate for President since 1964 when I sent my first paycheck as a bagboy at an A & P grocery store—$19 plus a few cents—as a contribution to the Barry Goldwater campaign.
But as I wrote in an earlier column, I don’t know of any Democrat in recent years who has hurt the Republican Party as much as the cruel extremist Netanyahu has. Almost everything was going along fine politically until last Feb. 28 when this latest war started.
As I watched the seduction of the President and Congress by Netanyahu and the Israel Lobby over the last few years, I thought several times about what President Eisenhower said to his Chief of Staff, Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, as quoted in Evan Thomas’s book, “Ike’s Bluff”:
He (Eisenhower) would periodically sigh to Andy Goodpaster, ‘God help the Nation when it has a President who doesn’t know as much about the military as I do’.
Even more significant, Eisenhower resisted tremendous pressure from Israel in 1956 to join it, France and Great Britain in a war against Egypt over the Suez Canal, and he did it on national television just a few days before the Presidential election.
Mitchell Bard wrote in The Times of Israel in 2014: “Eisenhower went on television to criticize Israel’s failure to withdraw from Egypt and warned that he would impose sanctions if it failed to comply. Eisenhower was prepared to cut off all economic aid, to lift the tax-exempt status of the United Jewish Appeal, and to apply sanctions on Israel.”
No President would have the guts to do that today, but because Israel killed and starved so many thousands in Gaza and shocked the world with its inhumanity there, a serious re-evaluation of the US-Israel relationship has at least begun, led by Vice President Vance.
Unfortunately, the killing by the Israeli Defense Force has continued over the last three years, not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, South Lebanon, and Iran. On Nov. 12, the day I wrote this column, NPR reported that an Israeli air strike had killed six people in Gaza, including a surgeon.
Even evangelical Christians, up until now one of Israel’s strongest US support groups, have begun to realize that you can bless and pray for Israel without agreeing with everything Israel’s politicians do.
Professor Jeffrey Sachs described Netanyahu as the main “cheerleader” for our war in Iraq. Both he and Professor Mearsheimer have said Iraq was the biggest mistake in US diplomatic history, and both, and many others, have described our Iran war as an even bigger mistake.
We should no longer listen to Netanyahu, Mark Levin, Ben Shapiro, Rupert Murdoch, and other Jewish billionaires whose number one priority in politics is the State of Israel.
There are now very few congressional districts where a person could be elected on an Israel First platform.
We should treat Israel just like we treat every other friendly nation, and we should never again let any other nation or foreign leader control US foreign policy.
President Trump was elected because enough people really believed that he wanted to put America First. They certainly did not know that he would allow Israel to lead us into the most unpopular war in American history.
