The United States is muzzling Israel to appease Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly had one of his worst conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday over the latter’s war against Hezbollah—at the urging of Iran.

• Israel announced yesterday that it would escalate its bombardment of Beirut to go after Hezbollah. At about the same time, Iran said it was walking away from peace talks with the U.S. because of Israel’s attacks.
• Hezbollah reportedly told the U.S. it was ready for a complete and immediate ceasefire—as it began striking Israeli targets.
• The same day, Trump called Netanyahu. Using much profanity, Trump called him “crazy” and accused him of being ungrateful. “Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,” he reportedly said, as paraphrased by a U.S. official speaking to Axios.
• Netanyahu’s account: “I spoke this evening with President Trump and told him that if Hezbollah does not stop firing at our cities and citizens, Israel will strike terrorist targets in Beirut. This position of ours remains unchanged.”

Iran is using the Hezbollah issue to divide America and Israel. Iran likely even asked Hezbollah to attack in this way to provoke Israel, which would, in turn, provoke Trump against Israel.

• One observer, speaking with the Trumpet, summarized: “What we are seeing from the phone call is that the United States is being played by Iran, and Trump is falling for it.”

Iran has manipulated circumstances with its terrorist proxies to divide America and Israel before. America and Israel entered this war as close allies. But the stakes are now higher, and Iran may use the ceasefire negotiations to drive them apart.