MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched war with Iran together, they seemed aligned. That was the end of February. Today, three months later, they seem at odds. The rift has to do with contradictory domestic political pressures. President Trump knows the war is not popular here in the U.S., whereas Israeli polls show many people there demanding defeat of Iran and its allies, including the Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. I want to bring in someone with deep experience navigating U.S.-Israel relations, Daniel Shapiro. He was U.S. ambassador to Israel in the Obama administration, and he is here with me in the studio today. Welcome, Ambassador.
DANIEL SHAPIRO: Thanks. Good to be with you.
KELLY: So President Trump's top priority seems to be ending the war. He just this morning said a peace deal is two or three days away. It's not clear exactly what he's basing that on, but that's what he says. Does Israel share that goal, ending the war and ending it fast?
SHAPIRO: The Israeli preference would be to continue the war.
KELLY: Why?
SHAPIRO: They would like to see Iran essentially defeated in a more lasting way. The war started with the target really of bringing down the regime, at least from the Israeli perspective, certainly doing devastating damage to the nuclear program so that it could not be reconstituted in any significant way and wiping out a ballistic missile threat that had really emerged as a very significant strategic problem for Israel. In the end, once Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, that became the primary strategic objective for the United States because it was causing global economic chaos, driving gas prices up at home, creating political problems for President Trump. So that's a divergence between U.S. and Israeli interests, which you can see playing out now in the way the prime minister talks about what he wants to achieve, tried to do some additional strikes just over the weekend, and President Trump's desire to wind this down.
KELLY: So what you're saying is President Trump would like to end the war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Let's get a peace deal. Let's get it done. Israel wants something bigger, more permanent. If those two goals have now diverged, does the U.S. hold more leverage here in terms of how and when this war ends? I'm thinking of another thing President Trump just said recently about Netanyahu, and I'm quoting, "he'll do whatever I want him to do."
SHAPIRO: Certainly, President Trump has the upper hand here. Prime Minister Netanyahu has portrayed himself to the Israeli people as Donald Trump's best friend, right hand. He has so fused his political identity with his relationship with President Trump. And he's now heading into a very challenging election that if he were to be belittled in some way or represented as the junior partner who takes orders from President Trump, essentially compromising Israel's ability to make sovereign decisions in its own security because President Trump says, no, that's very damaging for him politically.
KELLY: OK, stay with elections. Donald Trump would like to get this done by the midterms. Israel also has elections coming up this fall. It sounds like it's different. Why?
SHAPIRO: Israelis since October 7, when Hamas attacked from Gaza, have adopted a security doctrine that says, threats that could present themselves in that deadly a way must be eliminated. They can't simply be tolerated over the border. So they've, of course, conducted the war in Gaza ferociously. They've also conducted a war in Lebanon against Hezbollah and had several rounds and exchanges with Iran. So going into an election when it's clear that on none of those fronts have the threats been eliminated, that's a very frustrating place for Israelis to find themselves and certainly cuts against Prime Minister Netanyahu's presentation of himself to the Israeli public as the one bleeder who can manage Israel's security.
KELLY: The one who can keep you safe. Yeah.
SHAPIRO: One who can keep you safe, that's right.
KELLY: One other factor to mention here is that Netanyahu has corruption charges hanging over him. These are charges that go back years, back to 2020, allegations of bribery, of fraud and so forth. Explain how those charges may be factoring into his political calculations.
SHAPIRO: Listeners may be surprised to understand that the war might not be the No. 1 issue on many Israeli voters' minds. You mentioned the corruption charges that have been part of a trial that has been going on for years. Also very controversial is that Netanyahu seems prepared to provide a blanket and permanent exemption from military service to a portion of his coalition, the ultra-Orthodox parties whose men, instead of serving in the military, prefer to spend their time in religious studies, very unpopular with the rest of Israeli society that has been serving for hundreds of days during the course of this war and that thinks the burden should be shared equally.
So many Israelis are angry at Netanyahu for those two things, and what he may think is that the way he holds on to right-wing voters who are unhappy with his giving away of this draft exemption, who are unhappy with his corruption, but still concerned about Israel's security and addressing the threats. And so maybe he can hold on to those potential swing voters by continuing the fight against these hated enemies.
KELLY: So what is the relationship between these two men now, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump? How much of what we perceive from here as what looks like a rift is political theater versus real disagreement?
SHAPIRO: There's some of both. It's clear there's a divergence of interests. That's absolutely clear. There's also a little bit of a good-cop-bad-cop game that the two of them have played. They talk very frequently, and so it's certainly possible to have disagreements but continue to be partners. We've seen that before. But that notion that Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to present going into this election to the Israeli public is that he was Donald Trump's best friend and essentially equal partner in reshaping the Middle East. That has been really damaged. And at the moment, when Donald Trump says he's now imposing another ceasefire against Iran and when it's very clear that he's doing that over Netanyahu's objection and essentially giving instructions - and sometimes in a belittling way as Trump is capable of - that really is damaging to Netanyahu's public presentation.
KELLY: That is former U.S. ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro. He's now an Atlantic Council fellow. Thanks for coming in.
SHAPIRO: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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