Middle East
Netanyahu tells US that Israel will strike Iranian military, not nuclear or oil, targets, officials say
By
The Washington Post October 14, 2024
Shira Rubin and Ellen Nakashima
The Washington Post October 14, 2024
Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem on March 17, 2024. (Leo Correa, Pool photo via AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the Biden administration he is willing to strike military rather than oil or nuclear facilities in Iran, according to two officials familiar with the matter, suggesting a more limited counterstrike aimed at preventing a full-scale war.
In the two weeks since Iran’s latest missile barrage on Israel, its second direct attack in six months, the Middle East has braced for Israel’s promised response, fearing the two countries’ decades-long shadow war could explode into a head-on military confrontation. It comes at a politically fraught time for Washington, less than a month before the election; President Joe Biden has said publicly he would not support an Israeli strike on nuclear-related sites.
When Biden and Netanyahu spoke Wednesday — their first call in more than seven weeks after months of rising tensions between the two — the prime minister said he was planning to target military infrastructure in Iran, according to a U.S. official and an official familiar with the matter. Like others in this story, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.
The White House had no immediate comment. The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement that “we listen to the opinions of the United States, but we will make our final decisions based on our national interest.”
The retaliatory action would be calibrated to avoid the perception of “political interference in the U.S. elections,” the official familiar with the matter said, signaling Netanyahu’s understanding that the scope of the Israeli strike has the potential to reshape the presidential race.
An Israeli strike on Iranian oil facilities could send energy prices soaring, analysts say, while an attack on the country’s nuclear research program could erase any remaining red lines governing Israel’s conflict with Tehran, triggering further escalation and risking a more direct U.S. military role. Netanyahu’s stated plan to go after military sites instead, as Israel did after Iran’s attack in April, was met with relief in Washington.
Netanyahu was in a “more moderated place” in that discussion than he had previously been, said the U.S. official, describing the call between the two leaders. The apparent softening of the prime minister’s stance factored into Biden’s decision to send a powerful missile defense system to Israel, both officials said.
After that call, the president was more inclined to do it, the U.S. official said.
On Sunday, the Pentagon announced that it was deploying its anti-ballistic THAAD battery system to Israel, along with about 100 U.S. military personnel. The system, which officials say is expected to arrive in the coming days, “underscores the United States’ ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel,” the Pentagon statement said.
The Israeli strike on Iran would be carried out before the U.S. elections on Nov. 5, the official familiar with the matter said, because a lack of action could be interpreted by Iran as a sign of weakness. “It will be one in a series of responses,” she said.
Zohar Palti, a former intelligence director for Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, said Netanyahu would need to balance Washington’s appeals for moderation with the public demand in Israel for an overwhelming response.
“The Iranians have lost every measure of restraint that they used to have,” he said. “Without the U.S. weapons, Israel cannot fight,” Palti acknowledged. “But it is Israel who takes the risks” and “knows how to do the job.”
On Thursday night, the official familiar with the matter said, Netanyahu convened his security cabinet for three hours to discuss the options on the table, but he did not seek official authorization for the attack from his cabinet — keeping the timing intentionally open-ended.
Within the Israeli defense establishment, there is concern that the strike will not be forceful enough — or public enough — to deter Iran from another direct attack on Israel, or from developing nuclear weapons.
“The Israeli military wants to hit Iran’s military leadership, because it doesn’t hurt the people and it doesn’t erupt the region into a larger war,” said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Hebrew University who is in contact with senior members of Israel’s defense establishment. “But that is not how Netanyahu is thinking.”
In April, after a U.S.-led military coalition helped Israel intercept hundreds of Iranian drones and missiles — a large but well-choreographed attack — Israel responded with a pinpoint strike on an air base in Isfahan, in central Iran. Israeli officials mostly kept quiet after the attack, with the exception of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who posted on social media that the response was “lame!”
On Oct. 1, after successful Israeli operations against Iran and its proxies, including the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, Tehran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel — this time without warning — killing a Palestinian man in the West Bank and hitting at least two military installations. Amir Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said the attack was meant to “restore balance and deterrence.”
“When we responded last time, they didn’t get the message,” Palti said. “So the alternative now is between restraint or retaliation, and the answer is obvious.”
But Israel is already fighting on multiple fronts. Late last month, thousands of Israeli troops invaded southern Lebanon for the first time in nearly two decades and, last week, the military unleashed yet another punishing offensive in northern Gaza. When it comes to Tehran, figures close to Netanyahu’s team have signaled strategic patience.
“Just as we waited with [Hezbollah in] Lebanon, and with [Hamas in Gaza] in the south, now I think we will have to wait with Iran,” Natan Eshel, an adviser to the Netanyahu family, said in a leaked message to Israeli media Sunday. “We will get to the same point in the north, we will finish it, and then get to Iran, which is not going anywhere.”
On timing, too, Netanyahu appeared to be taking cues from Washington: The United States is “giving Israel and the Netanyahu government a bear hug, but for Hezbollah,” said a former senior Israeli defense official who is familiar with current security discussions. “It is sending THAAD and promising all kinds of weapons that we need to finish off Hezbollah, saying that we can deal with Iran later.”
While the White House has pushed unsuccessfully for a cease-fire in Gaza for months, leading to mounting friction between Netanyahu and Biden, it has so far given full backing to Israel’s ground operations in Lebanon, even amid a growing international outcry over the civilian toll of the war and Israeli clashes with U.N. peacekeepers tasked with monitoring the border zone.
As part of consultations with the United States, the official familiar with the matter said, Israel has told Washington it intends to wrap up operations in Lebanon in the coming weeks.
Netanyahu’s increased coordination with Washington comes after high-profile strikes carried out without advance warning to Israel’s closest ally — including a strike on Iranian commanders near a diplomatic facility in Damascus, Syria, and the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran — which surprised and angered U.S. officials.
While Netanyahu would continue to consult with U.S. officials on Israel’s looming strike against Iran, he would not wait for a green light from Washington, said an Israeli official close to the prime minister.
“The person who will decide on the Israeli response to Iran will be [Netanyahu],” he said.
Hovering over the final decision are the complex, and interrelated, political dynamics in Washington and Tehran. Talshir, the political analyst, said Netanyahu’s team was alarmed by the recent election of Iran’s reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian, who has signaled an openness to reviving nuclear talks with the West. If Vice President Kamala Harris is elected, Netanyahu thinks the nuclear deal will be back on the table, she said, “and so now is a strategic moment to undermine this.”
Prominent Israeli political figures, including former prime minister Naftali Bennett, continue to push for a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Anything less, he said, risked sacrificing the momentum Israel has gained from its wars in Lebanon and Gaza.
“Iran’s proxies Hezbollah and Hamas both have drastically diminished capabilities,” he said. “Israel has all the justification it could ever have. We have the ability. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”
Nakashima reported from Washington. Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv and Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report.