Jordan<\/a>, while Trump weighed options for further military action or diplomacy. As explosions were reported on Thursday across southern Iran, Pakistan called for renewed US-Iran negotiations, and Iran-backed militias in Iraq threatened retaliation within 72 hours.<\/p>\nNetanyahu\u2019s office offered a more conciliatory account after the meeting. The prime minister said the conversation was among the best the two leaders had held and that they shared an understanding that Iran must not acquire a nuclear weapon. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the meeting \u201cgood and productive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The real disagreement lies between Trump\u2019s preference for diplomacy and Netanyahu\u2019s belief in further military action\u00a0<\/p>\n
The official language covered the objective but not the dispute over how to reach it. Professor Eytan Gilboa, an expert on US-Israel relations and international communication at Reichman and Bar-Ilan Universities, told The Media Line that the real disagreement lies between Trump\u2019s preference for diplomacy and Netanyahu\u2019s apparent belief that further military action may be necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gilboa said Pickaxe Mountain had previously received little public attention because it was not considered active. He said new intelligence indicated significant activity at the entrances and raised the possibility that Iran had moved centrifuges and enriched uranium to the underground complex. The facility, which he described as Iran\u2019s best-protected nuclear site, would be difficult to reach at its deepest levels even in another American or Israeli campaign.<\/p>\n
That depth does not make the complex immune from attack, Gilboa said, but it changes what an attack could be expected to accomplish. American forces could inflict serious damage and obstruct access to the facility, he said, without necessarily destroying its lowest levels. The likely objective would be to delay Iran\u2019s nuclear work for years rather than claim that every part of the program had been eliminated.<\/p>\n
By publicizing the intelligence before his meeting with President Trump, Gilboa said, Netanyahu was signaling that the nuclear threat had not been resolved by the earlier strikes and that he did not trust Iran to honor a diplomatic agreement. But Gilboa argued that the decision carried its own cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it was a huge mistake,\u201d he said. \u201cYou challenge the president or the American intelligence community, with which you have to cooperate all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The disclosure also highlighted the limits of the available military options, Gilboa said. Although the United States could inflict substantial damage on the site, Iran has demonstrated a strong capacity to rebuild, particularly in its ballistic-missile program. That record complicates any claim that a renewed campaign would produce a lasting result.<\/p>\n
Gilboa said those limits help explain why a significant group within the White House continues to favor negotiations. President Trump also faces warnings from Republican candidates that a return to full-scale war could damage the party before the November 3 midterm elections, he said. The US president may prefer to preserve economic pressure and avoid a major campaign until then, although attacks by Iran and its allies leave open the risk that miscalculation could pull both countries back into a wider conflict.<\/p>\n
The question is especially sensitive after the collapse of the memorandum of understanding signed by the United States and Iran in June. Netanyahu opposed the framework but did not attack it publicly, according to US and Israeli accounts. Israel was not a signatory, and the agreement fell apart several weeks later as hostilities resumed and disputes over the Strait of Hormuz returned.<\/p>\n
Mediators have since sought to revive the framework or replace it with a new understanding. Trump has said talks with Tehran are going well, while keeping the prospect of renewed strikes on the table. Netanyahu arrived in Washington seeking closer coordination before the United States made its next decision.<\/p>\n
Israel would not be legally bound by an agreement it did not sign\u00a0<\/p>\n
Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, founder and president of Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center, told The Media Line that Israel would not be legally bound by an agreement it did not sign. In practice, she said, the government would still be constrained by its dependence on Washington.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFriendship and respect are not leverage,\u201d Darshan-Leitner said. \u201cIsrael does not have any leverage over the United States, and Prime Minister Netanyahu understands it very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said Netanyahu could present intelligence and press Israel\u2019s case, but would be careful not to push the relationship to a breaking point. In her formulation, Israel would not be legally obligated by a US-Iran agreement, but would feel compelled to respect Washington\u2019s demands because the United States remains its essential ally. Darshan-Leitner did not expect the meeting itself to produce a major decision, arguing that President Trump wants to avoid a wider confrontation before the November midterm elections.<\/p>\n
Darshan-Leitner also questioned whether another round of conventional attacks could stop Iran from rebuilding. She argued that sustained financial pressure, including restrictions on oil revenue and access to shipping, offered a better chance of weakening the regime than intermittent strikes.<\/p>\n
Her preferred strategy would keep Iran\u2019s access to oil income, ports and shipping under pressure long enough to worsen the regime\u2019s financial crisis. In her assessment, that pressure could revive domestic unrest in a way that military strikes alone have not. She acknowledged that such an approach carries costs for Washington, including higher energy prices, and may not produce results on the timetable President Trump wants.<\/p>\n
The legal route is limited as well. Darshan-Leitner said Shurat HaDin and other plaintiffs hold judgments worth more than $150 billion against Iran over attacks carried out by groups it supported. Yet victims could not sue the US administration or banks for releasing Iranian funds under an American agreement, she said. Their practical option would remain the pursuit of Iranian assets when jurisdiction and law allow it.<\/p>\n
That makes the terms of any sanctions relief central to Israel\u2019s concerns. Darshan-Leitner warned that funds returned to Iran could eventually reach Hezbollah, Hamas or other armed groups backed by Tehran. She acknowledged, however, that no money had been transferred to Iran under the expired memorandum.<\/p>\n
The administration and Netanyahu\u2019s office rejected the idea that the disagreement over Iran amounted to a rupture. Netanyahu Communications Director Tzipi Hotovely said Israel was not trying to push the United States toward a specific course and that both governments recognized several possible ways to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.<\/p>\n
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee went further, dismissing reports of a frosty relationship as a media construction. He said he frequently deals with Netanyahu\u2019s office and officials in Washington and sees no rift between the leaders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can tell you firsthand, there is not this frosty relationship. It is not a rift,\u201d Huckabee told Newsmax. He said President Trump and Netanyahu maintain personal trust even when they disagree, and argued that the partnership remains in both countries\u2019 interests.<\/p>\n
Huckabee also argued that Iran has refrained from launching missiles or drones directly at Israel since mid-April because Tehran expects a large Israeli response. Hezbollah has continued rocket and drone fire from Lebanon, he said, but most of Israel has remained relatively calm. His assessment presents the current pause as evidence of deterrence rather than proof that the nuclear and regional threats have been resolved.<\/p>\n
The meeting nevertheless produced little public evidence that the differences had narrowed. The two sides discussed possible Saudi-Israeli normalization in connection with the US-Saudi nuclear agreement, according to the Israeli account. A proposed sale of F-35 aircraft to Turkey, which Israel opposes, was not raised.<\/p>\n
Darshan-Leitner said she expected Trump to protect Israel\u2019s qualitative military edge even if Washington moved ahead with the Turkish aircraft sale and civilian nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia. She argued that the American president sees Israel as the only regional ally that fought alongside the United States against Iran. That confidence, however, was her assessment; neither government announced a new defense commitment after the meeting.<\/p>\n
Lebanon presents a parallel dispute. Gilboa said Israel, the United States and the Lebanese government share the goal of disarming Hezbollah but differ over the pace, security guarantees and forces needed to carry it out. As a limited test, Israel withdrew from two Lebanese villages and the Lebanese army deployed there, he said. The question is whether the army can prevent Hezbollah from restoring military positions in the south.<\/p>\n
Gilboa said Israel does not believe the Lebanese army can disarm Hezbollah on its own. A separate international force involving American, French or other foreign troops has been discussed as a possible alternative to the United Nations force already operating in Lebanon. If a credible force were established, he said, Israel might accept a gradual withdrawal, but not the rapid timetable sought by Lebanese President Joseph Aoun. Iran\u2019s demand to keep Lebanon tied to its negotiations with Washington creates another obstacle.<\/p>\n
Pickaxe Mountain remains the more immediate test<\/p>\n
Darshan-Leitner viewed a Lebanese agreement more favorably if it required the government and army to disarm Hezbollah and move its armed presence away from Israel\u2019s northern border. She cautioned that both institutions remain weak and contain officials sympathetic to Hezbollah. Even so, she described the Lebanese government\u2019s stated willingness to confront the organization as an opening Israel should try to use.<\/p>\n
Pickaxe Mountain remains the more immediate test. The intelligence Netanyahu took to Washington was meant to show that Iran\u2019s nuclear infrastructure is again changing beneath the ground. Trump answered that Washington already knew, preferred that such warnings remain private, and was still giving diplomacy room to work.<\/p>\n
Darshan-Leitner said the minimum acceptable outcome for Israel would be assurance that it could retaliate if Iran attacked it. She did not expect President Trump to authorize Israel to begin another war on its own. No such public guarantee emerged from Tuesday\u2019s meeting, leaving the response to Pickaxe Mountain dependent on the next stage of US-Iran talks and on what American and Israeli intelligence shows in the weeks ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu entered the Oval Office on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump publicly questioned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":568326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[49,54,42,87,43,250898,7991,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-568325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-news","tag-pickaxe-mountain","tag-the-media-line","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=568325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/568326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=568325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=568325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=568325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}