Want to know what Trump sounds like in Hebrew? Just listen to Netanyahu.
Like the American president, the Israeli prime minister peppers his speeches with references to promises and strength
Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu shake hands in the Oval Office. Photo by Getty Images
By Aviya Kushner June 23, 2025
It’s always instructive to listen to what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says in Hebrew, to Israelis — and not just what he says in English to heads of state and journalists.
His comments shortly after the U.S. attacked three nuclear sites were intimate in tone and framed the reduction of the Iran threat as a promise kept.
“Dear citizens of Israel, my brothers and my sisters,” he began. “In Operation Rising Lion, we have together achieved unprecedented achievements in the history of Israel.” For “history,” he used the word toldot, which is the name of a parasha in the Torah.
“You remember that at the beginning of this campaign, I promised you that the nuclear capabilities of Iran would be eradicated in one way or another,” said Netanyahu. “This promise has been kept.”
I immediately thought of the language used in a May 6 press release from the White House, titled “Promises Made, Promises Kept: President Trump Brings Americans Home” after the release of an American ballet dancer and a teacher from Russian prisons.
Here was Netanyahu, also connecting with voters using the same framing.
So I was not surprised that Netanyahu’s next sentences were about himself and Trump, and that the message to Israelis included a recounting of the phone call between the two leaders.
“A short time ago, in full cooperation between President Trump and me, and in cooperation with the IDF and the U.S. military, the United States attacked three nuclear facilities in Iran: Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan,” Netanyahu said.
He said the United States “continued” with “tremendous strength” the attacks that the IDF made on the nuclear program in Iran. “Strength” is another word that both Netanyahu and Trump like to use.
I quickly looked back at the release from the White House, and sure enough, that phrase — “renewed display of American strength” — was there:
Since taking office, President Donald J. Trump and his administration have secured the release of 47 detained Americans abroad — and that’s just the beginning as countries around the world respond to our renewed display of American strength and President Trump’s commitment to leaving no American behind.
In his speech Netanyahu talked not just about Israel, but about the world at large.
“This program threatened our existence, and it also endangered the peace of the entire world,” he said.
The attacks occurred around 3 a.m. Israel time, so Israelis were hearing this as they were waking up. Netanyahu then shared what had happened overnight and let Israelis in on the content of a phone call — or at least, Netanyahu’s version of a phone call.
“As soon as the attacks were over, I had a conversation with President Trump. The conversation was very warm and very emotional,” he said before he moved into the language of beracha, or blessing: “He blessed me, he blessed our army, and he blessed our nation. And I blessed him, and the pilots of the United States and the American people.”
“President Trump is leading the free world with strength. He is a giant friend of Israel, a friend the likes of which has not existed,” he said. “And in my name and in the name of all the citizens of Israel, and in the name of the entire Jewish people, I thank him from the depths of my heart.”
To anyone who has seen how Trump has treated other “friends,” this language is not particularly reassuring, but Netanyahu’s facial expression appeared to project faith in America’s president.
“I know, citizens of Israel, that I am speaking from the depths of the hearts of each and every one of you,” he said. “We stand together, we fight together, and with the help of God, we will win together.”
Here Netanyahu quoted from the Torah — just as he quoted the “rising lion” passage as the operation began. This time, he quoted from parashat hashavuah, or the weekly Torah portion.
Once again, as he had when he spoke of the “Rising Lion,” the prime minister quoted part of a verse, not the entire one.
The passage speaks of men who have been sent to scout the land of Canaan and return with their report. They say, according to the Jewish Publication Society translation, that the land “does indeed flow with milk and honey” but they also say that “the people who inhabit the country are powerful and the cities are fortified and very large.”
What Netanyahu quoted from is the next verse, where Caleb responds: “Caleb hushed the people before Moses and said, ‘Let us by all means go up, and we shall gain possession of it, for we shall surely overcome it.’”
Netanyahu quoted just a snippet — the most beautiful and resonant part.
Alo naa’leh, he said — we will go up. And then he skipped to ki yachol nachol lah, or “for we shall surely overcome it.” He skipped “and we shall gain possession of it.”
But to exhausted Israelis waking up to this news, and a changed Middle East, along with the near-certainty of more attacks on Israeli residential areas, a few missing words were probably the least of concerns. What mattered was that the ticking time bomb of a nuclear Iran was far less of a threat than it was a few hours earlier.
I tuned in to watch the prominent Israeli journalist Barak Ravid, who offered his own account of a Trump phone call. Ravid said that he called Trump right after the strikes, and that Trump told him that “your Israel” will be much safer now.
Like Ravid, I was struck by the grammar, particularly the use of the word “your.”
Both Trump and Netanyahu are doing their best to make all of this sound personal.
