The Trump administration feels “confident” that Israel “will get on board” with the deal between US and Iran, a senior US administration official said Friday.
“We feel like when they see the full terms of the deal and when they appreciate that fundamentally that there has to be delivery from the Iranians before we deliver any of the benefits, that they’re comfortable with that,” the official told reporters, suggesting that the full terms of the memorandum of understanding have not yet been shared with the US’ regional allies.
President Donald Trump has spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, the official said.
Netanyahu has long been skeptical that a deal with Iran can be reached and in recent weeks has grown increasingly concerned that the US may accept an agreement that, in Israel’s view, would not be as hardline as they want or meet the objectives of the war, sources said.
The senior administration official acknowledged “some skepticism” by Israel “of the misreported details that we’ve seen out there.”
“We feel confident that the deal that we’re actually going to strike, assuming we get there, is going to be a deal that everybody in the region can be comfortable with,” they said.
The senior administration official did not rule out future military action by Israel in Lebanon, which has threatened to scuttle US-Iran diplomatic efforts, saying they “put it back on Hezbollah and on the Iranians.”
They said the “broad regional peace agreement” does include Lebanon, as well as Israel and the Gulf, but “that doesn’t mean they give up the right to self-defense.”
“If the Iranians don’t honor their end of the obligation, I wouldn’t expect the Israelis to not respond,” the official said.