How the Iran Deal Is Testing the U.S.-Israel Alliance

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As the U.S. and Iran try to reach a lasting end to the war, a major threat has emerged.

The volatile conflict in Lebanon. President Trump needs Israel to stop attacking his ball of air in order to get Iran to agree to a deal.

“But many supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu feel betrayed by Trump's actions.”

Today, my colleagues Ronan Bergman and Mark Mazzetti explain the growing tensions between the United States and Israel, and how this moment is testing a decades-old alliance. It's Wednesday, June 24th. Ronan Mark, welcome back. It's great to have you both here again. Thanks, Natalie.

Nice to meet you. Thank you. So, in the last several days, we have seen a stunning break between the U.S. and Israel who entered this war in Iran as partners and are now very clearly at odds over how it ends. And this is a split that you both said was already developing in April the last time you were on the show.

“And so, I want to start by asking how big of a deal is the rupture that we are seeing over this new ceasefire and peace negotiation?”

I think that on it there is no, at least not in my vocabulary, not in English and not even in Hebrew. That ought enough words to describe the magnitude of what we are seeing from the point of view of Israeli politics, of Netanyahu's legacy is present chances to be reelect and, of course, from the point of view of this really public. Three times he was able to convince Trump to allow him to strike in Iran, then he convinced Trump to join him in June. And then he convinced Trump to fulfill his life dream and join the U.S. Israeli strike together in order to topple the regime.

So until that, everything went very well for him and this overnight shift of the American administration is the undo of everything for him. Yeah, is it fair mark to say that now the strength of that alliance between the U.S. and Israel is in question, now that we see the terms of this MOU between Iran and the United States? You know, Netanyahu is not only fair to say it, I think it's also even potentially an understatement. These two countries knew how to get into a war, but they had no idea how to get out of it.

They were on or they are on two totally different pages about the outcome of this war.

And once the war didn't go according to the most wildly optimistic outcomes that they hoped it would in the first few days,

things began going off the rails, the relationships started to fracture, and this is where we are today. So walk us through how we arrived at this point. So let's go back to when the MOU was signed last week, and where things stand right now. Iran's regime is still in place. Iran's ballistic missile force is diminished, but still intact. Iran's nuclear program, which was ostensibly the biggest reason for carrying out this war, is very much diminished.

But the future of it is sort of for a later negotiation, they've sort of punted that issue. So the main goals of the war haven't been achieved. Even President Trump said, "Sir, you shouldn't let them have any missile." When asked about Iran's missiles, Trump said, "Well, they're allowed to have it." "What am I going to do? I'm going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have it."

"Yes, sir." "Can't does it work that way, you know?" "Implying that if other countries like Saudi Arabia, like Israel have them, why not Iran?" And missiles are at the problem. missiles are they heard a little location, but they don't blow up the planet. And of course, there is the sort of central issue of Hezbollah and Lebanon.

And the fact that this new agreement restrains Israel's movements freedom to hit Hezbollah is now restricted.

because he's made this pledge that he will protect Israel from Hezbollah.

Right.

“Israel wanted to have these two issues to France totally separate it, to get his balance issue and the Lebanon, the Lebanese issue out of the agreement.”

The agreement will only deal with Iran, the US, nuclear, et cetera. Iran wanted to make the connection because they felt they are deep, because his balance to be to help them. Now they need to help his balance. Iran won. So Israel is in this kind of extraordinary position where because Iran just had so much leverage in these negotiations,

and the US agreed to these terms, Israel's ability to fight Hezbollah is now restricted, even though Israel was not at the negotiating table, and they wouldn't have wanted this. Trump signed the deal anyway. That's right. And so we ended up on ground where Iran came out with the better end of the deal.

So what has the reaction been in Israel? So usually the massive machine of valve pieces for Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Israeli media, the radio station said mainly in Channel 14.

“That's a TV station, I think maybe it can be equivalent to use masks on steroids.”

Very, very supportive of Netanyahu. Doesn't Netanyahu does? You can flip and turn and you can say one thing in the next day, the other, they will support him. And also, until last week, they also supported Trump. Their admiration, their compliments, their flattery to the president,

was second only to their attitude towards Prime Minister Netanyahu.

But the second it came clear. The Trump is going to sign the agreement, they flipped all of them. They've had a massive kishal on them and they missed our Shaljal al-Tambai in Nianazia. Trump won the win, Shukarga, Mersharkov, impsir, Aresha. And they started a slid to campaign.

They said that the Trump betrayed Israel. They turned on the Vice President Vatz. And they called him anti-Sepak. They called him anti-Sepak.

“They said that he is the "legitivizer of terrorism."”

Wow! The "legitivizer of Hisbala." And one of the main anchor, person for Jennifer did said, "They did that because they're Jewish." I know it sounds unbelievable, but it is really television. They said that they are Jewish Jew boys.

You know, slanted terms about Jews. They said that they received bribe from Qatar. Once they identified the enemy, Vice President Vatz and the two advisors, they don't care, they just lashed on them. Can you just decode that because it sounds really difficult,

honestly, to parse? These are Israelis who are lobbying anti-Semitic attacks against Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkov. Look, what is happening there? These people, they don't care about anything,

except one thing which is to support President Netanyahu. Someone, I know, called them "the Zopdibi." To support any of these policies,

the other thing is that they always look for a scapegoat.

Whatever goes wrong for Netanyahu, they look for someone to blame. Now, they cannot blame the head of the military or the head of Osad, the head of the Shibet or the Attorney General. So the only person they can blame is President Trump. You're saying essentially that they'll sink to any level in order to defend Netanyahu,

even if that means perpetuating these anti-Semitic tropes. They will do everything they believe can assist President Netanyahu in schlepping the blame on someone else, even if this includes anti-Semitic phrasing and ruin the relationship with someone who might be the next President of the US.

Now, the ministers that Netanyahu tried to keep on a short leash, they were a little bit more disciplined.

But they did say Israel is going to defend itself whether against the Iran or against Lebanon. If the situation is so bad, and we are all alone, there's only one person who can take care of the situation, and how to handle the situation, of course, Prime Minister Netanyahu. Whatever the truth, agreement, devil, you says, Israel will continue to do whatever it believes it's necessary.

Netanyahu, believe it's necessary, Israel will continue. And this is basically led to an ongoing war friction and more clashes between Israel and the American administration. These government figures are essentially saying we will defy the truth

when it comes to fighting his Bala in Lebanon, which is pretty amazing.

Yes. As that happens, that elicits a reaction from the Vice President from JDBans. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world. And they're talking to me about that.

Yeah, Vance comes out publicly and is extraordinarily blunt. They said, two Israel, effectively, where you're only friend in the world. Two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.

“And you should be grateful because we're keeping you afloat.”

We're defending you and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.

Be careful in your criticisms because we always have the ability

to cut off the things that help defend Israel. So was this veiled threat of cutting aid, cutting military equipment, which, of course, Israel does desperately need from the United States. But it's sort of playing this card, which you have not seen a senior American official, certainly American Vice President,

do perhaps ever. You've seen people in their system, Bingo Vier, and Smoturich, who have attacked the deal.

“And I guess my response to them would be, what is your exact proposal?”

And then Bands also talked to our colleague, Ross Dalthid, and said that these two hard-right ministers in Netanyahu's cabinet Bingo Vier and Smoturich should not be attacking this deal without offering any other way out of the war.

You know, you're a country of nine million people.

You can't just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have. Taken together, this was just quite a remarkable set of direct criticisms of Israel from the Vice President. Yes, and then late last week.

We're starting off with some breaking news this morning as you're taking a live look right now at the Israel Lebanon border. Hezbollah attacks into Israel, which elicits Israeli military response on Beirut. They really strike on southern Lebanon killed at least seven people, including

two children, hours after reports emerged of a ceasefire agreement. Creating this flare-up that once again really imperils this very fragile deal this is not the reality we can accept. And this is exactly why the IDF continues to operate in southern Lebanon. And that way Lebanon is sort of looking like the center of the question

of whether this will hold or not. Right, Iran said briefly that the straight had been closed again. And again, it seemed like maybe this whole deal was off. This was really a moment where everyone looked and said, "Oh no. Israel and Hezbollah are possibly going to sink this entire piece negotiation."

That's right.

“And I think that's really where the danger is right now.”

Is that Hezbollah has moved from the periphery to the central front in the future of peace between Israel and the United States? And to this question of control. Just how much Iran can keep Hezbollah in check, so it doesn't blow up the deal. And how much the United States can restrain Israel from attacking Hezbollah,

also, which will not potentially blow up the deal. We'll be right back.

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Okay, so the stability of a deal here hinges on whether the fighting and

Lebanon stops which in turn hinges on how much control Iran and the U.S. have over their allies. That's right, correct. So Ronan, let's start with Hezbollah. How much control does Iran have?

Because as we saw Hezbollah continue to send drones over the border to Israel after the deal was signed, that attack provoked a response. Iran has a full control over what his ballad is doing. As expected, the drones were sent as part of the Iranian tactics to improve their position in the negotiation because from their point of view

it's a win-win. If Netanyahu reacts or the idea to react, then he gets himself into another confrontation with Trump.

If he doesn't, then he gets into a confrontation with his own

situation at all with base because they say you're not reacting to what he's ballad is doing. What you're saying is that what we saw in terms of the attacks was Iran potentially intentionally baiting Israel here because if they didn't want Hezbollah to attack, they wouldn't have.

“Yes, and more Iran, I think, believes it can control the level of the fire”

without jeopardizing the deal. But leading to further friction between preparedist Netanyahu and President Trump and at the end to an anger of the president that would lead to forcing Israel not just to assist fire, but to a total withdrawal from Lebanon.

In a sense, trying to set up a pitch battle between Trump and Netanyahu stirring the pot. Does that feel right to you, Mark? Yes, although I think there's a dangerous game here that Iran might be playing and they recognize that, right?

They do not want to return to full-scale war. They have locked in an agreement right now that is very favorable for them, right? Yeah. Effectively, all they had to do was open the straight of our moves.

And now they've got a lot of money coming to them in what we're frozen assets, right? So a return to a full-scale war and perils that deal, but also brings a lot more violence to the country of Iran.

“So to Ronan's point, I think there's this question, if they can”

keep the sort of temperature at the right level where it can continue to in peril, the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump without going back to a full-scale war. And that's the sort of danger here. But thus far, they've been playing it quite well.

And it seems like the bet Iran is making right now is that Israel will react really forcefully to any attack from the President, the President, the President of Israel. And that kind of response has gotten President Trump's attention recently. I think they could do better in a bad way.

With respect to Hezbollah, right? That's right. When two drones are shot into the desert and drop harmlessly, you don't have to knock down buildings in Beirut. They could be a better.

So Netanyahu has framed these attacks as defensive, right? We are responding to Hezbollah's attacks on Israel, and we've right to defend ourselves. So we're going to hit into Beirut. That is also a card that Netanyahu will continue to play

“to see how far he can push Trump and test Trump's patients, right?”

Knowing, as we said earlier, Netanyahu has this sort of political situation where he has to deal with the security of Northern Israel for his own political future, but also he can't entirely blow up his relationship with President Trump. So he's going to see how far he can push it.

Okay, I want to turn to the question of how much Trump can do to keep Netanyahu in check. Because obviously, whatever the incentives and reasons that Israel

those kinds of strikes are precisely what threatens a deal

that Trump seems to care very much about preserving.

“Yeah, I think that since Trump became president again,”

Netanyahu showed high sensitivity, not to cross that line, not to force Trump to outcast him publicly. And when he felt that Trump is just about to explode, he said, okay, I obey. But something is different now.

Netanyahu maybe has now a different calculus. The calculus is the coming elections. And he believes that if he is just obeying Trump, he will come up with some very, very weak,

who cannot stand up to an American president

and is trying to say to his constituency, "I am not obeying President Trump when it comes to national security." And this road might lead to further friction between them. So that in a sense tells us that Netanyahu may be thinking he has more to lose in obeying Trump than to gain from it.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, I think, is the liberty between obeying Trump or going against him and supporting a much-suggest war in Lebanon. I don't think that he already made a call, but his call will not just impact the relationship between him and Trump.

It will also impact the deal between the US and Iran. And Mark, how is Trump responding to this test

“of just how much his ally in Netanyahu will really follow his lead?”

Well, so publicly he is flexing.

He is basically pointing out how much he kind of controls Netanyahu.

He said in fact a direct quote that Netanyahu will do whatever I want him to do. I think he is also willing to give Netanyahu some space to a point, but anything that is going to blow up this deal that Trump desperately wants, that's the breaking point. It sounds like for Trump the core tension is how much does he care about

preserving this special relationship with Israel, which is how much does he care about preserving this deal with Iran, and how far he's willing to go to make sure that it doesn't fall apart? I think President Trump has shown that in his view, alliances are dispensable if they get in the way of something he wants.

In this case what he really wants is an end to this war and a deal and moving on before the November elections. He's thinking about his own political future. Obviously, Mark, the big thing President Trump could do is make aid conditional on this ceasefire sticking.

Beyond rhetoric, that is the actual leverage the US has. Would Trump use that?

“Well, I think it's still unlikely that President Trump would take”

that drastic step to make aid absolutely conditional. And of course, he's not the only player here, right? Congress has a role. But that was certainly the threat that J.D. Vance was raising when he told Israel, you know, back off where you're only friends,

and we're the only one keeping you all safe. Right. But the fact that this is all being discussed now, that there's this real questions of, you know, might the United States actually condition aid or polade?

Like, we are in uncharted territory in the sense that just a few months ago, we were talking about this close US Israel partnership on the Iran War. But if it's unlikely that the US actually would pull aid or make it conditional on the ceasefire sticking, is it possible that, and Yahoo, may just say,

"Okay, I'm going to call President Trump's bluff." I don't think that Netanyahu would like to go down this road. He is already lost so much in the Israeli public opinion that accelerating the clash with the presidency would only damage him more towards the elections.

I think that Israelis don't understand how much damage Netanyahu's moves in the last six months. And the way that it's seen Netanyahu has convinced the President to go to this adventure where the President thought, maybe this is going to be just another Venezuela,

and found himself at the US find itself in the quick sense of the President's loss. And the damage of that will last for very long time.

We talked about Netanyahu always sort of saying his great superpower

was his knowledge of American politics and his ability to play American politics. And so it's sort of a great irony here that the legacy ultimately might be driving a bipartisan consensus between Democrats and Republicans against Israel and sort of driving this relationship ultimately into the ditch

by the guy who said he always knew more about American politics than anyone else in Israel. Right, and the other irony is that Iran may end up being this key factor that really drives a wedge between the US and Israel theoretically they're common enemy.

Something that Netanyahu for decades has been trying to get an American President to do would be to attack Iran and he gets this moment and he gets this opportunity and this is where it ends up. And when you think about where this has ended up, how bad is the damage to this relationship?

Can it be smooth over if the ceasefire ends up holding if the fighting dies down? Or has there been more permanent harm done here? Something that could lead to a fundamental reshaping of this decades-long alliance?

“I think the future of the relationship depend on what would happen”

when Iran and what would happen with this matter? Because now Israel is sort of handcuffed by the agreement and if the agreement ends up with Iran having nuclear capability of sorts they have a day high-reaching ring. Nothing would happen to the missiles, they would continue to support the proxies.

Then Israelis would have a difficulty with that. But this is for the future and for the negotiation with Iran. I think besides that Israelis would be happy to forgive. We'd be happy to put this away. Israel likes the US more than any other country in the world by far.

And this friction, Israelis would be happy if this is over. And Mark, on the US side?

“I think in a short term, things can survive in terms of the aid continuing.”

Fences can be mended, things can appear on the surface to be basically normal.

However, I do think that there is this fundamental shift in American opinion that has played out over time but has been particularly acute in the last two and a half, three years. Since October 7th, the Gaza war, two Iran wars, the war in Lebanon. There's this view, especially among younger people, but not entirely among younger people, who associate Israel with Netanyahu.

And they don't see the benefits of America's alliance with Israel. In fact, they see more negative. And that is a political shift that it's hard to see reversing, given where American politics are going, where not only the Democrats, but the Republican Party is going. And so this, I think, reflects what Ronin is talking about, the fear and Israel,

even if it hasn't sort of sunk in yet in Israel, that they're losing America. And I think that's a very real phenomenon, and that could, in the end, be one of the real lasting legacies of this war and at this moment. Well, Mark, Ronin, thank you both so much. Thanks, Natalie. Thanks so much.

We'll be right back.

“Here's what else you need to know today.”

On Tuesday, the house overwhelmingly passed a landmark housing bill, clearing the way for President Trump to sign the most significant piece of housing legislation in more than three decades. The measure aims to tackle the housing crisis by boosting supply in an effort to deal with the acute shortage of homes in America. The Senate already passed its version of the same bill,

and a White House official said that Trump was expected to sign it into law on Wednesday. And the Senate adopted a resolution instructing President Trump to end the war in Iran or seek congressional authorization to keep it going.

Trump never sought approval from Congress for the war,

and this was the most significant bipartisan rebuk of the conflict yet.

but it did represent a symbolically important break with the President by some in the GOP.

“The measure passed 50 to 48, with four Republicans joining Democrats in favor.”

Today's episode was produced by Rikina Vetsky, Caitlyn O'Keef, and Jessica Chang.

It was edited by Paige Cowett and Lizzo Baylin,

“and contains music by Dan Powell and Alicia Baitupe.”

Our theme music is by Wonderly.

This episode was engineered by Alyssa Mozzley.

“That's it for the Daily. I'm Natalie Ketrolett.”

See you tomorrow.