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U.S. President Donald Trump suggested that Israel should allow Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa to confront Hezbollah in Lebanon, saying the Syrian president would likely do "a better job" than Israel as he was already demonstrating what Trump called "amazing" governance.
"I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah, because to be honest with you, I think they do a better job," Trump told reporters at the G7 summit in France on Tuesday.
"He's not a Boy Scout, but he's done an amazing job of pulling it together, and he is very good with Hezbollah. Does not like them," he added.
Trump attributed Sharaa's rise in part to his own policy decisions.
"The man that's running Syria now is a person that I put there," he said, adding that Sharaa had been effective "along with President Erdogan and some others" in stabilizing the country in the post-Assad period.
"He's doing an amazing job of pulling it together, and he is very good," Trump said.
Trump sharpened his criticism of Israeli military conduct in Lebanon, saying the campaign against Hezbollah had dragged on far too long and was resulting in disproportionate civilian casualties.
"Israel is fighting Hezbollah for too long and too many people are being killed," he said.
"You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they're not all Hezbollah," Trump said.
He explicitly stated his frustration with the timing of Israeli strikes, noting they directly interfered with the Iran deal framework.
"I didn't like that he (Benjamin Netanyahu) did an attack, that was too much," he said of the Beirut airstrike Israel conducted hours before the announcement of the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding (MoU). Emphasizing the timing of the strike, Trump noted that it occurred "two hours before we're signing the agreement."
Israel's failure to bring its Lebanon campaign to a close quickly had, in Trump's assessment, generated unnecessary friction and "throws a negative light on the big deal, and that's the deal with Iran," Trump added.
Trump said he had told Netanyahu: "If Israel can't do the job against Hezbollah without killing everyone else, then Sharaa will do the job. Syria will do the job."
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