General Discussion

But the latter makes him incredibly easy to manipulate. That's why the long-reported issue with his susceptibility to both flattery and the last person to speak with him matters so much. Netanyahu definitely fits in the latter, and I suspect (like Putin's decades of blackmail evidence collection efforts), has freely used his Mossad to gather devastatingly damaging information against Trump.

Trump is a national security nightmare. But, likewise, a domestic security nightmare. Bibi shares Trump's criminality--to avoid it, the long-sought eternal war against Iran, Hezbollah-Lebanon, and Hamas (among others) is the perfect solution. Easy enough to justify to the Israeli RW-Likud and most certainly to Trump, albeit the latter was not looking for a long-term engagement.

Maybe Bibi only gave Trump the license or strong "encouragement," if some prefer, to do what he already wanted to, albeit in the most uninformed and consequence-ignorant manner. But, I certainly don't believe Trump would have done so NOW without Bibi and his "influence" (or unrelenting manipulation IMHO).