|
Trending Topics
|
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/23/world/middleeast/israel-trump-iran.html
Once Trump's Co-Pilot Against Iran, Netanyahu Is Now a Mere Passenger
(New York Times) David M. Halbfinger and Ronen Bergman - Israel was so thoroughly sidelined by the Trump administration, two Israeli defense officials said, that its leaders were cut almost entirely out of the loop on truce talks between the United States and Iran. Starved of information from their closest ally, the Israelis have been forced to pick up what they can about the back-and-forth between Washington and Tehran through their connections with leaders and diplomats in the region, as well as their own surveillance from inside the Iranian regime, said the two officials. With the Trump administration excluding Israel from the negotiations, Iran's arsenal of ballistic missiles may have been left off the table, as far as Israeli officials know. It would also be a dismaying setback for the Israeli public, for whom life largely ground to a halt as the nation was bombarded by Iranian missiles in March and April. On more than one occasion, Israel cleared plans with the United States, only to have the Trump administration throw them under the bus after those plans were executed. This played out when Israel later struck the South Pars natural gas field and oil facilities along the Persian Gulf in southern Iran. Trump criticized Israel for having "violently lashed out," and finally suggested that he had, in fact, spoken about the strike beforehand with Mr. Netanyahu, but had urged him not to carry it out. Mr. Trump even pressured Israel to bring a premature halt to its campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon within days after the cease-fire on April 8, forcing Israel to accept restraints on its fighting with a hostile adversary right on its border.