Trump in call to Netanyahu: ‘Do what you have to do’ against Hamas and Hezbollah

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump expressed support for Israel’s offensives against Hamas and Hezbollah in a recent call with the country’s prime minister - a position that could complicate his campaign’s outreach to Arab Americans claiming he opposes the war.

Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu in one call this month, “Do what you have to do,” according to six people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and confidential information. Trump has said publicly that the two have spoken at least twice in October, with one call as recently as Oct. 19.

“He didn’t tell him what to do militarily, but he expressed that he was impressed by the pagers,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who was on a call this month with Trump and Netanyahu, referring to the Israeli operation that killed Hezbollah leaders with explosive batteries inside pagers. “He expressed his awe for their military operations and what they have done.”

Graham added: “He told them, do what you have to do to defend yourself, but we’re openly talking about a new Mideast. Trump understands that very much there has to be change with the corrupt Palestinian state.”

An adviser to Netanyahu declined to comment.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said: “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, there was historic peace in the Middle East. Now, all of the progress made by President Trump in the region has been broken by the Harris-Biden Administration’s weakness and America Last policies. When President Trump is back in the Oval Office, he will fix the mess Kamala and Biden’s policies created. Israel will once again be protected, Iran will go back to being broke, terrorists will be hunted down, and the bloodshed will end.”

Trump has tried to court both Jewish and Muslim voters with at times contradictory positions on the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon. He portrays himself as an unrivaled friend to Israel in front of Jewish audiences, while surrogates appeal to Arab communities by saying Trump supports peace and opposes the war.

Netanyahu, for his part, has spent years cultivating Republicans and has shown a clear preference for Trump in this election. People familiar with the situation said he is trying to regain Trump’s favor after antagonizing him by congratulating President Joe Biden on winning the 2020 election, a victory Trump has never accepted.

Trump’s message strays from the Biden administration’s painstaking efforts to persuade Israel to avoid escalating the conflict with Iran. U.S. officials are comfortable with Israel hitting Iranian military sites but want to avoid the targeting of oil, gas and nuclear infrastructure, which could upend the global economy amid Iranian threats to retaliate against Western energy interests.

Following consultations with Israeli officials, the Biden administration expects Israel to strike Iran sometime after Secretary of State Antony Blinken leaves the region, said two senior U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive military matter. The top U.S. diplomat recently met with officials in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where he departed Thursday for additional meetings in London.

Foreign governments regularly communicate with both major-party nominees and their representatives leading up to an election as they try to assess the potential impact on their national interests. Candidates have faced criticism in the past for venturing into foreign relations while not holding government office.

During the 1968 campaign, Republican Richard M. Nixon secretly worked to undermine the Johnson administration’s peace talks in Vietnam - efforts not revealed until decades later. Some U.S. officials have accused Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign of making a secret deal with Iran to wait to release American hostages until after the election. Two congressional inquiries found insufficient evidence to support the claim.

In private, Trump has expressed hostility to Iran because the country’s security forces hacked his campaign, according to the Justice Department, and the former president believes that Tehran is seeking to kill him in retaliation for the 2020 U.S. strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

Trump asked U.S. intelligence officials briefing him on the threat whether Iran was involved in the two assassination attempts against him in July and September, and several of Trump’s advisers have become convinced of an Iranian connection. There is no evidence tying Iran to either of the assassination attempts, but the FBI has not ruled out the possibility of a connection, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal sensitive discussions.

Trump has emphasized international conflict and volatility, especially in Israel and Ukraine, to criticize Biden’s and Vice President Kamala Harris’s global leadership.

His campaign also is betting on appealing to American Jews, especially in the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania, by emphasizing Israel and antisemitism. Without evidence, Trump accuses Harris, who is married to a Jewish man, of hating Israel and Jews, and he warns of the state’s total destruction if she wins. He has also criticized American Jews - who for years have strongly supported Democrats over Republicans - sometimes in terms that many view as playing on antisemitic tropes.

“The Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” Trump said at campaign event in September. “It’s only because of the Democrat hold, or curse, on you.”

Trump has pledged if elected to reimpose his ban on travel from some Muslim-majority countries and to revoke student visas from participants in pro-Palestinian protests. He has repeatedly crowed about relocating the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv; moving to normalize relations between Israel and some Arab states through the Abraham Accords; and recognizing the Golan Heights as part of Israel. “What’s that worth, $2 trillion?” he has asked donors. “And I did it in five minutes.”

Israel, he told the donors, will “be finished” if he isn’t reelected. “I actually believe that,” he said.

At a fundraiser this year, Trump repeatedly assured donors that he would be solidly behind Israel and would throw campus protesters out of the country. “Maybe you have to go further than that,” he said.

“We’re going to set that movement back 25 or 30 years,” he said.

At the same fundraiser, he said that Netanyahu “has got to be able to finish it. It’s a sick deal. And I’m one of the only people that says that now.”

Trump has made similar comments publicly. Speaking to reporters in Detroit on Oct. 18, he criticized Biden by saying the president was trying to restrain Netanyahu.

“He’s trying to hold him back, and he probably should be doing the opposite, actually,” Trump said. “I’m glad that [Netanyahu] decided to do what he had to do, but it’s moving along pretty good.”

At the same time, Trump and allies have been courting Arab American voters in states such as Michigan at events with surrogates including Graham, former acting intelligence chief Ric Grenell, and Massad Boulos, a Lebanese businessman whose son is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany. This month Trump met with Sheikh Belal Alzuhairy of the Islamic Center of Detroit and Sheikh Saleh Ibrahim of the Iman Islamic Complex, a Yemeni American congregation in the same city.

Boulos has been particularly active, four people in the region say.

A pro-Trump super PAC called Future Coalition PAC has been placing contradictory ads targeting Arab voters in Michigan and Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. The group’s digital ads in Michigan portray Harris as taking Israel’s side against pro-Palestinian protesters. In Pennsylvania, on the other hand, the group’s ads question her support for Israel and accuse her of “pandering to Palestine.”

The goal of the Trump campaign in Michigan, advisers said, is to persuade voters in heavily Muslim areas like Dearborn not to vote for the Democratic ticket, even if they are not willing to cast a ballot for Trump, a campaign adviser said. In September, Trump received the endorsement of Amer Ghalib, a Yemeni immigrant who serves as the mayor of Hamtramck, Mich., home to a large Muslim population. He also won the backing of Yemerican PAC, the Yemeni American Political Action Committee of Hamtramck & Detroit, and Dearborn, Mich., community leader Samraa Luqman.

Graham was in Michigan on Wednesday pitching Trump to Muslim voters, he said. “I told the Arab Americans here today in Michigan, your homelands - whether it be Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Pakistan - the best hope for your homelands to live free from Iranian aggression is with Trump,” Graham said.

Even some of Trump’s critics suggest that he has made serious inroads among Arab Americans while supporting Netanyahu.

“Because the situation has escalated in recent weeks, I think a lot people say what’s the difference?” said Warren David, a third-generation Arab American who is president of Arab America, a digital media platform. " I am shocked at how many people say they are voting for Trump, when we were talking to people on the streets in bakeries and in different places. Trump is really capitalizing on this.”

David said he was approached by a Trump surrogate to appear at his conference in Michigan this weekend and said no. Others - including leaders from the “uncommitted” movement who urged votes against Biden in the Democratic primary race - are appearing, he said.

“He instituted the Muslim ban, he made Jerusalem the capital of Israel, he gave the Golan Heights away. There is your heart, and people are mad. And there is your logic. People aren’t voting strategically,” David said.

Top Harris campaign officials are blanketing Michigan this weekend, according to activists, along with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California).

“We just have to really remind people about Donald Trump’s real record and how he treats the Arab American community, and remind people of the Muslim ban, that he wants to start internment camps,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Michigan).

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Ellen Nakashima and Isaac Stanley-Becker contributed to this report.