'Fuck him:' Trump turned on his former ally Benjamin Netanyahu for acknowledging Joe Biden's election win, book says

• Donald Trump is said to be furious at Benjamin Netanyahu for acknowledging Joe Biden's election win.
• "Fuck him," Trump said of the former Israeli leader, Axios reported Friday, citing a new book.

Former President Donald Trump ended his friendship with Benjamin Netanyahu because the former Israeli prime minister would not back his election-fraud claims, according to Axios.

Netanyahu, the conservative who leads the opposition and has been the longest-serving Israeli prime minister, was one of Trump's closest allies on the global stage during his four-year term.

But that affection ended in late 2020 when Netanyahu acknowledged that President Joe Biden won the US election, Axios reported.

It cited excerpts of the book "Trump's Peace: The Abraham Accords and the Reshaping of the Middle East," by author Barak Ravid.

"Fuck him," Trump reportedly said of Netanyahu during a 90-minute interview with Ravid at Mar-a-Lago in April.

Trump said he was enraged when former first lady Melania Trump showed him a video of Netanyahu congratulating Biden.

"He was very early — like, earlier than most. I haven't spoken to him since. Fuck him," Trump told the author.

"The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with," Trump said. "Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake."

Bibi is a common nickname for Netanyahu.

Responding to Trump, the former Israeli prime minister on Friday defended congratulating Biden as a vital part of maintaining strong US-Israel relations.

"I highly appreciate President Trump's big contribution to Israel and its security. I also appreciate the importance of the strong alliance between Israel and the U.S. and therefore it was important for me to congratulate the incoming President," Netanyahu said, per Axios.

Netanyahu waited for 12 hours after the election result was called by major networks in November 2020 before congratulating Biden.

Trump compared his behaviour unfavorably with that of Russia's Vladimir Putin and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, who both waited for around a month before acknowledging Biden's win.

"They felt the election was rigged," he reportedly remarked of Russia's authoritarian leader and Brazil's far-right president.

Trump's remarks matter for Netanyahu, who narrowly lost in the Israeli general election earlier this year under a cloud of scandal.

He is seeking to win back office despite facing corruption charges, and has boasted that Trump and he have a close relationship. Trump remains popular in Israel over his hardline stance on Iran (he withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal) and support for Israeli positions when it came to policies toward Palestinians. And the Trump administration orchestrated the Abraham Accords, which saw a number of Arab countries — the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco — formalize diplomatic relations with Israel.

Trump as president took a number of controversial steps that went against decades of US policy but were in line with Netanyahu's agenda and politics, including moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights. The Trump administration in early 2020 also released a "peace plan" for the Middle East that involved no consultations with Palestinian leaders, which critics said effectively amounted to a PR stunt for Netanyahu ahead of an election.

Trump remains fixated with his election loss more than a year since his defeat, and is waging a revenge campaign against former allies who've criticised him for pushing baseless election-fraud claims.