This Wednesday’s press conference at the G7 was far from the first time that US President Donald Trump has recalled how Israel purportedly pulled out of a 2020 joint operation to kill top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani.

Trump has harked back countless times — after his first term in office and later as he began campaigning to return to the White House — about how frustrated he was at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for supposedly leaving the US to take out Soleimani on its own.

He still regularly touts the success of that operation, but for the past two-plus years stopped mentioning that Israel allegedly decided not to take part at the last minute. It’s a claim Jerusalem has never confirmed and one that contradicts reporting that Israel actually provided intelligence used in killing Soleimani.

Trump stopped bringing up the supposed Israeli non-role in the operation in early 2024 when he became the Republican Party’s presidential nominee. Shortly thereafter, he held his first meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu since lashing out at the premier for congratulating Joe Biden on winning the 2020 US presidential election.

As the 2024 election approached — and even more so after he won that race — Trump warmed up to Netanyahu significantly, apparently concluding that a close relationship to Israel and its leader would benefit him politically. Those ties became tighter than ever this year, when the US and Israel jointly launched a war with Iran.

Now, Trump’s return to his grievance about Soleimani is one more indication that a rift is again forming between the two men. His rehashing of an old frustration with Israel can easily be tied to newfound disputes over policy that didn’t exist during his first year and a half back in office, but this friction also seems to correlate with how the center of gravity has shifted away from Israel within the Republican Party.

Tying his fate to the Jewish state may have been beneficial for Trump as the GOP presidential nominee just two years ago, in the relatively fresh aftermath of the Hamas invasion and massacre in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. But perceptions of Israel among Republicans — particularly younger ones — have declined since, as Jerusalem has made land grabs in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, and as Israel’s fight against Hezbollah threatens to derail US-Iran peace talks.

Praising, then clashing with, a ‘wartime prime minister’

When this reporter asked Trump in a March phone interview to explain how he managed to get past his previously stated beliefs that Netanyahu was disloyal and uninterested in peace, the US president dodged the question completely and reiterated........

© The Times of Israel