Bob Woodward’s book War’s extraordinary account of US President Joe Biden’s relationship with Israel

Warning: this article contains profanities.

“Bibi, what the fuck?” Joe Biden barked down the phone to Benjamin Netanyahu. “You know the perception of Israel around the world increasingly is that you’re a rogue state — a rogue actor.”

Netanyahu had just killed a top Hezbollah military leader — two months before the terrorist group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated in a similar airborne attack on Beirut, by American bombs, prompting a second war on the Jewish state’s borders.

Over the phone, the Israeli president seemed to shrug.

“This is Haniyeh,” Netanyahu replied, according to a new book by famous Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, War. “One of the leading terrorists. A terrible guy. We saw an opportunity and took it.”

Woodward’s account of the Biden and Trump administrations’ complicated relationship with allies during two wars — Ukraine and Israel — isn’t published until next week. But early leaks have already caused a sensation. Not just in Washington but around the world.

Woodward describes an elderly US president desperately struggling — and mostly failing — to control his close ally in Jerusalem.

Vice President Kamala Harris is portrayed as two-faced. After a friendly meeting with Netanyahu, she pledges that she will “not be silent” about Palestinian suffering under Israeli attacks.

“She wants to be tough in public,” Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Michael Herzog, told Woodward. “But she wasn’t as tough privately.”

As for Donald Trump, he is even closer to Vladimir Putin than previously thought, according to Woodward.

In 2020, amid a global shortage of tests for the novel coronavirus, Trump sent diagnostic kits to the Russian president for his personal use, according to a Washington Post summary of the book.

Putin, who was petrified of being infected with COVID-19, urged Trump not to reveal the gift because of the likely political backlash.

“Please don’t tell anybody you sent these to me,” Putin said to Trump, according to Woodward.

“I don’t care,” Trump reportedly said. “Fine.”

The book suggests the two men may have spoken up to seven times since Trump reluctantly left the White House in 2021. Biden, who regards Putin as a threat to US democracy, hasn’t spoken to his counterpart since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, 2022.

Not long after the invasion, US intelligence agencies decided that Putin was considering using a tactical nuclear weapon — an attack that could kill thousands of soldiers in the one area — and the odds were 50 per cent, according to War.

But in the current circumstances, it is the revelations about Biden and Netanyahu’s strained relationship that are the most inflammatory.

After last year’s October 7 attack by the Hamas terrorist group, Biden became the first US president to visit Israel during a war. In Tel Aviv, he declared, twice: “You are not alone.”

Since then, Biden has become deeply frustrated with his counterpart, who has shown a determination to wipe out Israel’s attackers, even at the cost of great civilian casualties, Woodward writes.

“What’s your strategy, man?” Biden asked in April, six months into the Gaza war, according to an account of the book in the New York Times.

Netanyahu said the Israel Defence Forces needed to take Rafah, a city near the border with Egypt where many Hamas fighters were likely to be.

“Bibi, you’ve got no strategy,” Biden replied.

The following month Biden vetoed a shipment of 3,500 bombs destined for Israel because he was concerned that they would be used on Rafah.

Netanyahu attacked the Palestinian city anyway, prompting Biden to tell his advisers that Netanyahu was a “fucking liar” and “18 out of 19 people who work for him” were also liars, according to Woodward.

The relationship hasn’t improved. On Tuesday Netanyahu cancelled a meeting between his defence minister and US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin in Washington. The two men were going to discuss Israel’s expected response to Iran’s attack on Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities last week with more than 180 ballistic missiles.

Israeli officials have said that they plan a significant military response. American officials say Israel hasn’t shared its plans.

Netanyahu stipulated he needed to speak to Biden before the defence ministers could meet – and Biden seemed to be avoiding him, the Washington Post reported. The two leaders, who have known each other for decades, haven’t spoken in seven weeks.

In Woodward’s book, Biden is quoted explaining how he tries to influence Netanyahu to be less aggressive. When Iran attacked Israel with missiles for the first time, in April, with little effect, Biden urged him to “take the win” and not retaliate even though he knew a response was likely.

“I know he’s going to do something but the way I limit it is tell him to do nothing,” Biden said, according to the book.

War is scheduled to go on sale in Australia on October 15, according to Booktopia, an online bookstore.

Sydney University History professor James Curran said the conversations in the book between the US and Israeli leaders were “explosive”.

“One can almost set the clock during each US administration for when a Bob Woodward book blows the lid off the carefully prepared scripts of White House spokespeople,” he told The Nightly.

“Judging from the leaks of its contents … Woodward’s latest appears to be no different.”