After weeks of building speculation, a carefully sourced report by Reuters has pierced the veil of public comity between the United States and Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly confided in private conversations that Israel has “little ability” to influence President Donald Trump’s decision-making regarding Iran, as the White House relentlessly pursues a preliminary agreement to end the three-month‑old war. The admission, conveyed to Reuters by two Israeli officials who spoke on condition of anonymity, apparently shows just how marginalised Tel Aviv has become in a conflict it helped initiate.
For months, Israeli hardliners had insisted that the war would not end until Iran’s nuclear programme was dismantled and its enriched uranium stockpiles were removed. Yet with the memorandum of understanding (MoU) reportedly focused first on reopening the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for the US lifting its naval blockade, deferring the nuclear file to later negotiations; Netanyahu has apparently had to confront an uncomfortable reality: his influence on the American president is not what it used to be.
The Israeli leader’s concern is not merely about prestige but about substance. According to the two Israeli officials who spoke to Reuters, Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed reservations about the MoU currently being negotiated between Washington and Tehran. He is demanding the right to continue military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, a caveat that could derail the entire deal if Iran insists on a complete halt to Israeli operations in southern Lebanon. Yet despite these concerns, Netanyahu has reportedly acknowledged that Israel “has no manoeuvre to influence the president right now”. This acknowledgement, as one Israeli official put it, reflects a recognition that the strategic calculations that once bound Washington and Jerusalem closely together have shifted. The US, preoccupied with its own domestic political calendar, midterm elections are only months away and has prioritised a deal that would stabilise global energy markets and lower fuel prices over Israel’s maximalist demands.
Netanyahu’s private misgivings were not limited to the nuclear file. He is also deeply worried that any agreement between Washington and Tehran could tie Israel’s hands in Lebanon, where Israeli forces have continued to exchange fire with Hezbollah despite an April 16 ceasefire. Iran’s insistence on a complete cessation of hostilities in Lebanon as part of any final deal has placed the Israeli prime minister in a bind: push back too hard and risk alienating Trump; accept the terms and face a domestic backlash from his right‑wing coalition partners. For now, the Israeli leader has opted for a public posture of staunch support while privately conceding his limitations.
The dismissive attitude of the Trump administration toward Israeli entreaties was laid bare in the president’s own remarks. Following one of their three phone conversations last week, Trump told reporters that Netanyahu “is a very good man” but that “he’ll do whatever I want him to do”. While Netanyahu’s office later issued a statement emphasising that the two leaders “agreed that any final agreement must eliminate the nuclear danger”, the reality is that the emerging MoU does no such thing. According to Iranian sources who spoke to Reuters, “feasible formulas” to resolve the dispute over Tehran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile, including diluting the material under the supervision of the UN nuclear watchdog are being contemplated for future stages of negotiation, not for the immediate agreement. In other words, the preliminary deal that Trump is pushing hard to finalise would leave Israel’s core concerns unaddressed for weeks or even months, while the strait is reopened and the US blockade is lifted.
That the Israeli leader has been reduced to publicly praising a deal he privately fears is a measure of how far his political star has fallen. Three phone calls in a week, on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday did little to alter the trajectory of the talks. After the third call, Netanyahu issued a carefully worded statement that studiously avoided any criticism of Trump, instead reiterating that any final agreement must “dismantle Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites and remove its enriched nuclear material”. Yet he did not claim that such terms were actually being met. For a prime minister whose political survival has long depended on projecting an image of firmness, the gap between his private admission and his public statement is a revealing measure of his predicament.
Complicating matters further, Israeli officials have told Reuters that their country made preparations last week for a possible return to joint air strikes with the US on Iran, targeting energy infrastructure. Yet those preparations appear to have been more a gesture of defiance than a genuine military option. Without a green light from Washington, any unilateral Israeli strike would risk igniting a wider war for which Israel is ill‑prepared, and which the Trump administration has made clear it does not want.
As the MoU moves closer to finalisation, the contrast between public rhetoric and private reality becomes ever starker. Netanyahu will likely continue to speak tough in public, demanding the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear programme, insisting on freedom of action in Lebanon, and vowing to prevent Tehran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon. Yet behind closed doors, he has reportedly told confidants that Israel is essentially powerless to alter the course of the negotiations.