President Donald Trump said Wednesday at the NATO Summit in Brussels that he was “proud” of Israel for refraining from a broader strike on Iran after a ceasefire violation even though “technically, they were right.”
On Tuesday, Trump excoriated Iran and especially Israel for violating the ceasefire. In fact, it was Iran that had violated the ceasefire, continuing to fire ballistic missiles at Israel as the deadline passed, and then firing again several hours later. Israel launched airstrikes on Iran in response, to deter future violations — just as Israel has done in Lebanon, every time Hezbollah has violated the ceasefire the U.S. negotiated in November.
Trump demanded that Israel abandon its mission and tell its pilots to turn around. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly insisted that Israel had to respond, but scaled down the response. Israeli pilots struck a radar station near Tehran before abandoning other targets, in deference to the American president.
When Trump accused Israel, as well as Iran, of violating the ceasefire, Netanyahu released a precise timeline of events, to which the White House did not respond.
At the press conference, Trump was conciliatory. While he had used foul language toward Israel the day before, this time he struck a different tone.
A a press event with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, Trump was asked about how the ceasefire was going. He said:
I think very good, I think very good. Israel came back yesterday. I was so proud of them, because they came back. You know, they went out because they felt there was a violation, and technically they were right, but it just wouldn’t have worked out very well, and they brought the planes back. They had gone on to another journey, because there was a little bit of a violation, and I said, “You’ve got to get them back,” and they came back, and it was a great thing, and it’s going very well.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said late Tuesday that Iran has continued launching drones at Israel, all of which have been intercepted by Israeli air defenses, without further Israeli response.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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