Why Benjamin Netanyahu poses an obstacle to US and Iran peace deal | US-Israel war on Iran
If there is to be a peace agreement between the United States and Iran, a familiar obstacle will have to be overcome: Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have become a sticking point in talks about potentially opening the Strait of Hormuz, putting the unstable alliance between Donald Trump and Netanyahu to the test once again.
This time, Israel’s prime minister is under extraordinary pressure to show that his campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran are delivering results, as he faces elections that put his political survival at risk.
The Israeli leader threatened on Monday to bomb the southern suburbs of Beirut to dislodge Hezbollah, prompting Iran to say it would cut off talks with the United States until the conflict is frozen. Faced with talks collapsing after claiming a deal was close, Trump replied: “I think we’re talking too much.”
The crisis culminated in an – allegedly stormy – phone call between Trump and Netanyahu. “What are you doing?” Trump told the Israeli prime minister, an official told Axios, a US channel that frequently provides insider coverage of Trump’s frustration with Netanyahu.
Another person described Trump’s remarks as “If it weren’t for me, you’d be in jail.”
This account is disputed. Israel’s Channel 12 said the focus was on a misunderstanding between the two men: “Trump thought Netanyahu was implying that the war was continuing in full force, while Netanyahu felt Trump was implying a complete ceasefire,” the channel’s chief political analyst Amit Segal wrote, quoting a close Netanyahu aide.
Trump later told ABC News: “There was a little glitch today, but as you probably noticed before, I turned it around very quickly.”
Netanyahu has seen five US presidents since 1996, when he served as Israel’s prime minister, and has caught the eye of all of them. (“Who’s the fucking superpower here?” Bill Clinton was said to have exclaimed after their first meeting in 1996.)
But this is an unprecedentedly worrying moment for Netanyahu. On Monday, the Knesset passed the first reading of a bill to dissolve Israel’s parliament 106-0, with early elections expected in the fall. After earlier surges in the polls following successful attacks on Iran’s leadership, Netanyahu’s popularity rating has fallen due to the prolongation of the war in Iran as well as conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon.
“He doesn’t have a story about this election, and so he needs to either somehow triumph in Lebanon or, if not victory, at least tell the story that he’s still fighting,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former special adviser on the Middle East to Vice President Kamala Harris and formerly Iran team chief at the Defense Department. He currently serves as chief policy officer at J Street, a lobbying and advocacy group that calls itself “pro-Israel, pro-peace.”
“He needs this to be able to say: I’m still working towards total victory,” Goldenberg said. “That’s a much better story for him than: This was done, and I didn’t actually manage to eliminate any of these threats.”
Hearings resumed this week in the long-delayed trial in which Netanyahu was accused of fraud and bribery. Netanyahu has regularly used his position as prime minister of a threatened country to delay the trial; This potentially links his freedom to the question of whether he will remain in office.
While the Israeli Prime Minister has been successful in lobbying Trump to jointly attack Iran, Trump’s own political views in the US may now set a precedent.
Despite publicly claiming not to be concerned about the midterm elections, Trump regularly invoked economic data, including oil prices, to argue that his administration was successful. Over the Memorial Day holiday weekend, average prices in the United States were at the highest level since Covid.
The timely leak of details of his call to Netanyahu may indicate that the Trump administration wants to appear tough on Israel to avoid allegations that the Israeli Prime Minister is calling the shots. After the meeting, Netanyahu confirmed that Israel would not strike Beirut if Hezbollah did not. At least eight people were killed in Israeli drone strikes on Tuesday, hours after Trump and Netanyahu agreed to stop the fighting.
The other question remains in Iran. The government maintained control over 20 percent of global oil trade by closing the Strait of Hormuz, believing that economic distress would affect the United States in negotiations. However, the US blockade also disrupted the Iranian economy; It threatened the long-term viability of the oil industry and the regime’s own source of finance.
It remains to be seen whether Israel’s ongoing military operations in Lebanon – Netanyahu’s main trump card in the negotiations – will remain a red line for Iran. Other incentives, including freezing Tehran’s frozen assets, could make the deal even sweeter for Iran. But Trump, who harshly criticized Barack Obama for approving the release of frozen assets under the Iran nuclear deal, is loathe to do the same.
Meanwhile, Trump continued to say he was close to signing a deal. “I still need to get a few more points,” he told ABC News. He later added: “We’ll get what we need.”
