Benjamin Netanyahu Quietly Working To Win Trump Over Ahead Of Presidential Elections After Falling Out In 2020

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his team are working behind closed doors to win over former President Donald Trump’s approval after the two world leaders had a falling out in 2020, Axios reported on Tuesday.

Netanyahu called President Joe Biden in 2020 following the year’s election and congratulated him on his win, which Trump viewed as an insult and prompted him to stop speaking to the Israeli leader. As Trump’s chance for a win in 2024 increases, Netanyahu’s team is attempting to win Trump’s favor back — but it hasn’t been easy, people in Netanyhu’s orbit told Axios.

“Every time we thought we managed to put this behind us, we discovered that it didn’t work and that Trump was still angry,” an aide to Netanyahu told Axios.

After Netanyahu offered his congratulations to Biden for his presidential victory, Trump in a 2021 interview accused Netanyahu of being disloyal and not doing enough to help the U.S. in assassinating top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani the year prior. Trump also felt that Netanyahu wasn’t serious about resolving the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Trump said he felt betrayed because he knew Netanyahu on a personal level and worked hard to support Israel during his tenure.

“ was very early — like, earlier than most,” Trump told Axios’ Barak Ravid in 2021, referring to Netanyahu’s congratulatory phone call to Biden. “I haven’t spoken to him since. Fuck him.”

Since then, Netanyahu’s team has spent years trying to make amends with Trump, meeting with the former president’s team on at least four separate times aides of the prime minister told Axios. On one occasion, aides hand-delivered a copy of Netanyahu’s book to Mar-a-Lago and read passages favoring Trump, but that seemingly failed to win them over.