United States President Donald Trump criticized Israel’s fight against Hezbollah yesterday. Speaking at the G7 summit in France, Trump said he felt “Israel is fighting Hezbollah for too long and too many people are being killed.” He continued:

I’m not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah. They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever. And when that happens, it throws a negative light on the big deal, and that’s the deal with Iran.

His solution: President Trump claimed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa would do a better job dealing with Hezbollah than Israel. Referring to Sharaa, he said:

He’s very capable. And he’s been very good for me. He’s protected everything that I’ve asked for …. And if Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else, he’ll do the job. Syria will do the job.

This is truly bizarre. Sharaa is a former al Qaeda operative who was on the U.S. government’s terrorist blacklist until Nov. 7, 2025, three days before Mr. Trump hosted him at the White House.

• His relatively new government in Syria already has troubling associations with other terror groups and persecuting minorities. But according to President Trump, he is more trustworthy than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Israelis are shocked. British journalist Melanie Phillips summarized their feelings about Trump’s words and actions:

President Donald Trump’s apparent volte-face on Iran is being felt as an abandonment. … So Israel now faces an excruciating choice—between abandoning its northern citizens to Hezbollah attacks, and risking a vindictive Trump cutting off the military support necessary to keep itself alive.

Phillips writes that many Israelis viewed President Trump as a “new Cyrus,” the king of Persia who the Bible records as delivering the Jews from Gentile captivity.

• Trump moved the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, brokered the Abraham Accords, and ordered strikes on Iran’s nuclear program last year.

But now he is giving Iran a deal to continue its nuclear weapons work and is apparently close to withdrawing all support for Israel’s war on Hezbollah. Truly, as Joel Hilliker wrote on Monday, “The spirit of Antiochus Epiphanes is in the White House.”