U.S. President Donald Trump cursed and yelled at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a tense phone call days before a U.S.-brokered deal to end the Gaza war was announced, telling him that “all the Jews are sick of you,” according to a new book by New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.
The exchange, reported by Jewish Insider from the book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, took place during last September’s negotiations over what became Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
The call came during the United Nations General Assembly, as Trump was trying to sell the framework for ending the war that began after the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre. According to Haberman and Swan, the final push followed a turbulent period in which Kushner and Witkoff had grown furious with Israel over an IDF strike in Doha that targeted Hamas leaders.
The September 9 strike in Qatar took place one day after Kushner and Witkoff met at Witkoff’s home in Miami with Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s close adviser, to discuss postwar plans for Gaza.
“Dermer lied to us,” Kushner and Witkoff told White House officials after the strike, according to the book.
The Qataris initially responded by deciding they no longer wanted to help Israel. Kushner, according to the account, felt the same way.
“I’m f***ing out. The Israelis are crazy,” Kushner reportedly told an associate at the time.
But the strike also created an opening, the authors write. Kushner concluded it could be used to restrain Netanyahu after nearly two years of war and began drafting what would become Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan.
Days later, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, Kushner and Witkoff met with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani. The Americans told him he had two options: isolate Israel further, which they said would be “understandable,” or use the moment “for leverage” to push Israel toward negotiations.
According to the book, Al Thani took Kushner’s laptop and began typing edits directly into the draft.
Trump then presented the deal to Arab and Muslim leaders before showing it to Netanyahu. Witkoff and Kushner warned White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles that Netanyahu might try to call Trump and derail the plan. When Netanyahu eventually called the White House, Wiles connected Kushner and Witkoff, who stayed on the line with Trump and the Israeli prime minister.
As soon as Trump joined the call, according to the book, he began yelling at Netanyahu.
“You can’t back out of this. I’m the best friend Israel ever had. Everybody hates you, and I’ve stood by you,” Trump said, according to the book. “This is a great deal for Israel.”
Netanyahu said he would agree to the deal. Two days later, he and Trump appeared together at a joint press conference, presenting a united front even though the deal had not yet been finalized. Trump said Netanyahu would have his “full backing” to continue the war if Hamas refused the agreement.
The deal was finalized on the evening of Oct. 8, just over a week later. Soon afterward, the 20 living hostages who remained in Gaza were released.
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff
(Photo: Alexander Kazakov/ AFP)
The new excerpt adds to a series of revelations from Haberman and Swan’s book about Trump’s relationship with Netanyahu and the way Israel, Iran, Gaza and Lebanon figured inside the president’s second-term White House.
In another passage reported earlier, Trump called Netanyahu a “con man,” one of the harshest insults in the president’s personal lexicon, while telling Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson during an Oval Office meeting that the United States would not go to war with Iran because such a confrontation would destroy his legacy.
According to the book, Trump initially said he wanted “no part of Netanyahu’s war with Iran,” but later changed his position after a Situation Room meeting in which Netanyahu presented Israel’s arguments. CNN reported that the authors described “con man” as one of Trump’s sharpest forms of criticism.
The book also describes Trump’s reaction to Israel’s September 2024 pager attack against Hezbollah in Lebanon. According to Haberman and Swan, Trump was both “fascinated and horrified” by the operation.
In the Oval Office meeting, Trump described severe injuries from the attack to Musk and Carlson, including severed genitals and missing hands, and said one survivor “looked like a great white shark came and just took a chunk out of him.” The authors wrote that Trump repeatedly said, “It’s terrible, terrible,” while expressing astonishment at “the indiscriminate nature” and “recklessness” of the attack in a public space.
Musk, according to the book, was “mesmerized” by a golden pager Netanyahu had given Trump as a gift. Trump, meanwhile, asked Carlson how to influence “the base,” his right-wing supporters. Carlson criticized Trump for refusing to confront Netanyahu over what he called “the slaughter in Gaza” and argued that the Israeli prime minister was trying to drag the United States into a war with Iran that would ruin Trump’s presidency.
The book also portrays a volatile White House after the U.S. strike on Iran. According to Haberman and Swan, Trump became angry with Vice President JD Vance for not precisely repeating his claim that the strike had “completely destroyed” Iran’s nuclear program. Vance said in an interview that he was not sure what the difference was between “severely damaged” and “destroyed,” while stressing that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back significantly.
According to the authors, Vance appeared worried after the strike, and advisers believed he feared further escalation. When he suggested that Trump soften parts of his speech about the operation, the president replied: “I know what I’m doing,” then turned away and ended the discussion.
Together, the excerpts depict Trump as publicly embracing Netanyahu while privately raging at him, using personal pressure, profanity and political leverage to force movement at key moments.
The sharpest example, according to the new account, came in the days before the Gaza deal, when Trump warned Netanyahu not to walk away from the plan and framed himself as Israel’s last reliable defender.
“You can’t back out of this,” Trump told him, according to the book. “I’m the best friend Israel ever had.”