Axios quotes supposed White House leakers slamming the Israeli PM: “He’s a madman!” Anonymous Trump team slams Bibi’s supposed “bomb everything” propensity after Israel’s firm responses to massacres that killed over 1,000 in Druze areas.

---

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing back hard against a wave of anonymous U.S. leaks condemning Israel’s recent military strikes in Syria, following horrific atrocities committed against the Druze community in Sweida.

In a hostile report published by Axios — a frequent outlet for anti-Bibi spin — unnamed U.S. officials labeled Netanyahu “a madman” with a penchant “to bomb everything all the time,” and accused him of jeopardizing President Trump’s Syrian stabilization efforts. One senior official reportedly fumed, “Bibi’s political agenda is driving his senses. It will turn out to be a big mistake for him long-term.”

The language, which borders on adolescent tantrum, comes amid mounting evidence of widespread war crimes by Syrian regime forces and allied militias. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, over 1,000 people have been killed in the Sweida region since the clashes erupted last week — including 298 Druze civilians and 336 Druze fighters. Victims included women and children. Reports describe regime soldiers looting homes, executing civilians, beheading Druze men, and publicly humiliating religious leaders by shaving their mustaches.

Israeli strikes targeted Syrian military command centers and a regime building near the presidential palace in Damascus. The IDF emphasized that the attacks were tightly focused and designed to deter further bloodshed. “We’re not bombing for politics,” said one Israeli official. “We’re preventing a genocide.”

Netanyahu, who has a long-standing alliance with the Druze — a loyal minority group in Israel with deep roots in the IDF — made clear that inaction was not an option. “Israel will not turn its back while Druze communities are butchered across our border,” he told confidants. “Never again is not just a slogan.”

Speaking on Fox News, conservative commentator Mark Levin rose to Bibi’s defense, saying, “This is the only leader in the region acting like a man — with moral clarity and strategic courage. He’s not a madman. He’s the last adult in the room.” Levin lambasted the Biden-era holdovers and DC bureaucrats who “leak to Axios because they don’t have the guts to say it publicly.”

While President Trump himself has not formally condemned the Syria strikes, he did reportedly express anger over a separate Israeli shelling incident in Gaza, in which three civilians were killed when a tank shell accidentally hit a church. Netanyahu issued a rare expression of regret, and the IDF is investigating the mishap.

The broader U.S. frustration appears focused less on the Gaza error and more on the perception that Netanyahu is acting unilaterally. “The president doesn’t like turning on the television and seeing bombs dropped in a country he is seeking peace in,” said one official quoted by Axios. But critics in Israel say Washington’s obsession with optics is blinding it to the facts on the ground.

“The idea that we should sit on our hands while our allies are slaughtered is not just immoral,” said a senior Likud source. “It’s suicidal.”

The Druze issue cuts deep in Israeli society. Thousands serve in the IDF, police, and intelligence services. The death of even one Druze soldier is treated nationally as a loss in the family. With reports of children beheaded and women executed in Sweida, Netanyahu’s calculus is not political — it’s existential.

Although U.S. envoys Tom Barrack and Steve Witkoff reportedly requested that Israel pause strikes to allow diplomatic channels to play out, Netanyahu reportedly agreed to a 24-hour pause before resuming operations when it became clear the Syrian regime was using the lull to reinforce its positions.

Saudi Arabia and Turkey have issued formal protests, and some U.S. voices warn that continued strikes could destabilize Trump’s Syria strategy. But in Jerusalem, the view is clear: Israel won’t be dictated to by faceless officials feeding quotes to sympathetic journalists.

“The people leaking this garbage to Axios should grow a spine,” said one senior Israeli diplomat. “If you have a problem with the Prime Minister of Israel defending innocent lives, say it on record. Until then — we’ll keep doing what needs to be done.”