President Donald Trump has struggled to exert influence over Israel since returning to the White House, with his attention split between a war in Iran, the drug trade in South America and Russia’s four-year-long incursion into Ukraine.
Just last week, Netanyahu rejected a White House-backed peace plan in which Hamas would relinquish the reins in Gaza and Israeli troops would withdraw from the strip.
In Syria, Israeli troops have hit a country governed by one of the president’s favored world leaders. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited the White House last November, and Trump has described al-Sharaa as a “young, attractive guy, tough guy.”
“The Al-Sharra government has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces,” Barrack wrote in his post criticizing the strike. “It has, in fact, repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel. The United States has in the past, and will continue in the future, to host discussions to encourage diplomatic cadence over kinetic frustration for both nations.”
In a statement Tuesday, the Syrian foreign ministry called the attack “an unjustified act of aggression, a flagrant violation of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and a dangerous escalation that threatens security and stability in the region.”
It’s far from the first time the Trump administration has broken with Netanyahu’s government in recent months. Trump shared a fiery phone call with the Israeli prime minister in June after his country struck Lebanon and complicated U.S. ceasefire talks with Iran.
“We have a little dispute over Lebanon,” he said at a G7 press conference later that month in France. “I say, ‘You can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don’t have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hezbollah.’”
The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
