A diplomat working on the Tehran negotiations told Fox News’ Trey Yingst that “the strikes today in Beirut are creating issues with finalizing the deal.” The diplomat called them “a clear attempt by Israel to sabotage the president’s deal and drag the United States back into war.”
The Israel Defense Forces had hit Beirut for the second time on Sunday, June 14. Washington had warned that any such strike would derail a breakthrough with Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was about to convene Israel’s Security Cabinet, and Trump had just said a signing of the new U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding was imminent. He condemned the strikes in a post on Truth Social, and told Axios that Netanyahu had “no f—ing judgment.”
Doubts in Jerusalem
Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said the worry inside the Israeli government was real. He called it “a rational and healthy fear.” Sachs, an Israeli foreign policy expert, told Fox News Digital that “there is a sense in Israel that Trump may be growing weary of Netanyahu,” and that some believe a fed-up Trump could “flip on Israel.”
He described a strategic gap between the two men. Netanyahu favors sustained, long-term military pressure. Trump wants quick diplomatic wins.
“Netanyahu was always prepared for the long haul,” Sachs said. “And the long haul is not four months; the long haul is years. Trump likes quick wins.”
Temperament plays a part too, in his telling. “Netanyahu is an erudite, well-educated, patient, highly suspicious and extremely pessimistic man by nature,” Sachs said. “Netanyahu also believes you live with a problem, you manage it, and you kick the can down the road. Trump is the opposite.”
The two leaders do share broad aims: curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions, ending Hezbollah’s armed presence in Lebanon, and settling a post-Hamas future for Gaza. But Sachs argued that a shared list is not a plan. “Having that wish list is not the same as having a strategic goal,” he said.
Netanyahu’s public line
Talks with Tehran were running through Pakistani mediators when Trump announced the possible deal on June 11. Soon afterward, the Israeli prime minister’s office put out a statement saying Jerusalem “is not a party to the memorandum of understanding.” On June 12, Netanyahu repeated that Iran was “working to destroy the Jewish state,” and told Israelis he had given his life to “preventing them from doing so.”
A senior Israeli official added on Sunday that Hezbollah had been targeting Israeli civilians for three days, as Israel braced for Iranian retaliation.
Trump had already lashed out earlier in the month. In a phone call, he reportedly called Netanyahu “crazy” over a first strike on Beirut that was complicating the negotiations with Iran.
The earlier flare-up
The BBC described a similar episode in the days before. Israel bombed sites in Iran for the first time since an April ceasefire, after Iran fired missiles at Israel in what Tehran called retaliation for Israeli strikes on Beirut.
After the Iranian missiles, Trump told journalists he was “going to call [Netanyahu] right now and tell him not to retaliate.” Hours later Israel attacked anyway. Trump told the BBC the Israeli planes were “already on their way” when he spoke to Netanyahu, and denied that he had been defied: “If I tell him to do something, he does it.”
Aaron David Miller, a veteran US negotiator, told the BBC that Trump had given Netanyahu a “blinking yellow light.” The IDF said it had acted with “full co-ordination” with US Central Command.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, took the exchange as a gain for Tehran’s hand at the table. He called “diplomacy and defence” the “two wings of national power.” Trump, meanwhile, said the two sides were in “the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal.”
Sources
- Israel fears Trump weary of ‘highly suspicious’ Netanyahu and could 'flip' amid Iran deal: analyst
- Israel and Iran flare-up could strengthen Tehran's negotiating hand
