(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested that Syria, which is led by former al-Qaeda commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, should “take care” of Hezbollah in Lebanon rather than Israel.
The president said he was “not happy” with Israel’s war in Lebanon, which has been supported by the US, due to the tactic of taking out entire apartment buildings, though his Pentagon employed similar tactics in Yemen and was responsible for major civilian casualties in Iran, most notably the bombing of the elementary school in Minab.
“Israel’s fighting Hezbollah for too long, and too many people are being killed. You don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody because there’s a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you,” the president told reporters during a meeting with Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France.
“I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah, because to be honest with you, I think they’d do a better job of doing it,” Trump said. He went on to praise Sharaa, formerly known by his al-Qaeda nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, saying he “has pulled that country together very quickly, he’s very capable, and he’s very good for me. He’s protected everything that I’ve asked for.”
Sharraa and his group of jihadists, known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda, took power in Damascus in December 2024, ousting former President Bashar al-Assad. Sharaa has been embraced by Trump and visited the White House despite HTS and affiliated fighters being responsible for massacres of Alawites, Druze, and other minorities in Syria.
Sharaa said earlier this month that he had no intention of intervening in Lebanon, saying that “what is being circulated about Syria entering Lebanon is nothing more than rumors.”
Trump was asked on Tuesday if he was frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israel’s war in Lebanon, and said that he wasn’t and that he has a “great relationship” with the Israeli leader, though he added that he “didn’t like” that Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday, which was seen as an effort to sabotage the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding.
“I didn’t like that he did an attack [over] a very minor little thing with some drones. I saw that attack, I saw where that bomb went. That was a vicious… that was too much. You can do too much also. But we’ve had a very effective relationship,” Trump said.
“Without the United States, there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no Israel – because no other president was willing to do what I did. I had a great relationship with Bibi, but now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon,” he added.
Iran continues to insist that any deal with the US hinges on an end to Israel’s war in Lebanon, but Netanyahu has said he has no intention of withdrawing. Israel’s attacks in the country also continue, killing at least four people on Tuesday, though they are less intense since the announcement of the agreement between the US and Iran.
This article originally appeared at Antiwar.com.
