{"id":656275,"date":"2026-05-21T10:48:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/656275\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T10:48:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:48:19","slug":"trump-and-netanyahu-diverge-on-iran-wars-future-in-tense-phone-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/656275\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Netanyahu diverge on Iran war\u2019s future in tense phone call"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagreed over Iran strategy in a tense phone call this week.
\n Trump halted planned strikes to pursue diplomacy, while Netanyahu pushed for military action against Tehran.<\/p>\n

\n AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.<\/p>\n

\n US President Donald Trump had a tense conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday that reflected their different views on how to proceed with the Iran war, a US official told CNN.\n <\/p>\n

\n It wasn\u2019t their first conversation in recent days. When the two leaders spoke on Sunday, Trump shared that he was likely to move forward with new targeted attacks on Iran early in the week, the official said \u2013 an operation that, as CNN has previously reported<\/a>, was expected to get a new name: Operation Sledgehammer.\n <\/p>\n

\n But roughly 24 hours after that initial conversation, Trump announced he was halting strikes<\/a> that he said were planned for Tuesday at the request of allies in the Gulf, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In the days since, the Gulf nations have been in close contact with White House and Pakistani mediators in working on a framework that could further diplomatic talks, the US official and a person familiar with the situation said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the final stages of Iran. We\u2019ll see what happens,\u201d Trump told reporters on Wednesday morning about efforts to secure a deal.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019ll either have a deal or we\u2019re going to do some things that are a little bit nasty,\u201d he went on. \u201cBut hopefully that won\u2019t happen.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n The ongoing negotiations have frustrated the Israeli prime minister, who has long advocated for a more aggressive approach in dealing with Tehran. Netanyahu has argued that a delay only benefits the Iranians, according to Trump officials and Israeli sources.\n <\/p>\n

\n Netanyahu made his disappointment known on Tuesday, telling Trump that he believed delaying the expected attacks was a mistake, and that the president should continue as planned, the US official said. During the hour-long conversation, Netanyahu pushed for a resumption of military action, an Israeli source familiar said. The divergence was clear: Trump wants to see if a deal can be reached, but Netanyahu was expecting something else, an Israeli official said.\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN has reached out to the White House.\n <\/p>\n

\n Axios first reported the tense phone call<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n The Israeli concern after that Tuesday phone call extended to officials around Netanyahu, another Israeli source told CNN. There is a strong desire in the upper echelons of the Israeli government for renewed military action, this source said, and mounting frustration that Trump is continuing to allow what they say is Iran\u2019s diplomatic foot-dragging.\n <\/p>\n

\n But Netanyahu\u2019s frustration with the US approach \u2014 and specifically Trump making threats only to eventually press pause \u2014 is not entirely new, sources familiar with their conversations said. US officials in the past have acknowledged differing objectives between the US and Israel when it comes to the war.\n <\/p>\n

\n Asked what he told the prime minister the night before, Trump suggested Wednesday he\u2019s in the driver\u2019s seat.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe\u2019ll do whatever I want him to do,\u201d the US president said.\n <\/p>\n

\n And despite Netanyahu\u2019s pressure to return to active combat, Trump, for now, has continued to push for a diplomatic agreement, claiming Wednesday that things with Iran are \u201cright on the borderline\u201d and that it\u2019s worth giving diplomacy a few more days if it saves lives.\n <\/p>\n

\n Iran\u2019s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Wednesday that Tehran and Washington have continued to exchange messages through Pakistan, according to the state-affiliated Nour News outlet.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cBased on Iran\u2019s initial 14-point text, messages have been exchanged on several occasions, and we have received the American side\u2019s viewpoints and are currently reviewing them,\u201d spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pakistan\u2019s army chief Asim Munir will travel to Tehran on Thursday as part of ongoing mediation efforts between the US and Iran, according to Iran\u2019s ISNA news agency.\n <\/p>\n

\n Pakistan has played a central role in working to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict, including hosting high-level, face-to-face talks between US Vice President JD Vance and Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in April.\n <\/p>\n

\n But it\u2019s unclear which, if any, of the key gaps between the two sides have been narrowed. Iran has not backed away from its core demands, and issues around its nuclear program and frozen assets had remained unresolved earlier this week, a regional source said.\n <\/p>\n

\n And Trump has repeatedly indicated that military action remains an option.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf we don\u2019t get the right answers, it goes very quickly. We\u2019re all ready to go,\u201d he said Wednesday.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summary President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagreed over Iran strategy in a tense phone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-656275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}