Tel Aviv (Somalia Today) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has privately acknowledged that Israel has little room to influence US President Donald Trump’s decisions on Iran, as Washington pushes for a deal to halt a nearly three-month war, Reuters reported.
Two Israeli officials with knowledge of the conversations told Reuters that Netanyahu had voiced concern over an emerging memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran.
The proposed understanding would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for Washington lifting its naval blockade, before later negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme.
The remarks point to rare private unease in Israel over Trump’s handling of a war that began on February 28 with joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
Netanyahu’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump in control
Trump and Netanyahu have spoken by phone at least three times in the past week as negotiations accelerated.
But Israeli officials said Israel has largely stayed outside the indirect US-Iran talks, which Pakistan has mediated.
After one of the calls, Trump was asked what he had told Netanyahu. “He’s a very good man, he’ll do whatever I want him to do,” Trump told reporters.
One Israeli official involved in Netanyahu’s private conversations said the Israeli leader believes Israel “has no manoeuvre to influence the president right now”.
The official said Netanyahu has raised concerns because the emerging deal does not immediately address Israel’s central demands on Iran’s nuclear programme and stockpile of enriched uranium.
Iranian sources have said later talks could explore “feasible formulas” to resolve the dispute over its highly enriched uranium, including diluting the material under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog.
But Tehran has not agreed to remove the material from its territory, a core Israeli demand.
Wider talks
After another call with Netanyahu on Saturday, Trump briefed leaders from the Gulf, Turkey and Pakistan on the status of the Iran negotiations.
Netanyahu later said he and Trump had discussed the “memorandum of understanding to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the upcoming negotiations toward a final agreement on Iran’s nuclear program”.
He said they agreed that any final deal must mean “dismantling Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites and removing its enriched nuclear material from its territory”.
Netanyahu also said Trump had “reaffirmed Israel’s right to defend itself against threats on every front, including Lebanon”.
That point remains one of the most sensitive obstacles in the negotiations.
Israel wants to preserve the freedom to strike Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups even if Washington reaches an understanding with Tehran.
Iran, however, could demand a full halt to Israeli military operations in Lebanon as part of any broader settlement.
Lebanon front
Israel and Hezbollah have continued fighting despite an April 16 ceasefire, which followed a wider US-Iran truce.
Israeli troops remain deployed across parts of southern Lebanon, while the Israeli military has continued air strikes targeting Hezbollah positions.
Hezbollah has fired drones towards Israeli troops and into northern Israeli towns.
The Lebanon front has complicated Trump’s push for a deal, because Netanyahu insists Israel must keep the right to act against threats on all fronts.
That demand could collide with Iran’s insistence that any agreement should stop Israeli military action in Lebanon.
The dispute also shows how far the war’s objectives have shifted since the opening strikes.
At the start of the campaign, Netanyahu said Israel aimed to create the conditions to topple Iran’s clerical government, eliminate its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities and cripple its ability to project power across the region.
Trump later gave the final order for the Iran operation after Netanyahu argued for the joint killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Reuters has reported. Khamenei died in the first strikes.
Different priorities
Since then, US and Israeli objectives have diverged.
Washington has focused on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important energy routes and a corridor that carried about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the war.
Israel wants a broader settlement that removes Iran’s enriched uranium, dismantles its nuclear infrastructure, curbs its ballistic missile programme and ends Tehran’s support for regional allies.
In a CBS interview this month, Netanyahu said more work still remains.
“There’s work to be done,” he said, stressing that Iran’s enriched uranium must leave the country and that Tehran must stop supporting regional proxies and producing ballistic missiles.
The emerging deal, therefore, creates political risk for Netanyahu.
He faces pressure at home before a national election he is projected to lose, while opponents accuse him of failing to achieve the goals he set at the beginning of the war.
For Trump, reopening Hormuz and pausing the conflict would offer a diplomatic and economic victory.
For Netanyahu, a limited deal could leave Israel facing the same threats he said the war was meant to remove.
That gap now defines the relationship between the two leaders: public coordination, private frustration and a war whose endgame Washington increasingly controls.
