Lahav Harkov
Jewish Insider, Feb. 6, 2025
“… if there are a few small fish with problematic views for Israel, we can deal with it. All the senior people support Israel very much. Yesterday, at the Department of Defense, we heard very warm and supportive things from Hegseth. That guy [DiMino] sat in the room and heard him. The spirit of his commanding officer is very clear.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu supports President Donald Trump’s return to a maximum-pressure sanctions campaign and an attempt to reach a nuclear deal with Iran, as long as there is a credible military threat if Iran does not comply, an Israeli diplomatic source told Jewish Insider following the leaders’ meeting in the White House this week.
In the meeting, Netanyahu conveyed to Trump that Israel may take “action” against Iran “if and when there won’t be a choice,” the source said on Thursday.
“The prime minister thinks that we need to bring back the policies of the first Trump administration, the maximum pressure strategy,” the source said. “We are in favor of putting as much pressure as possible on Iran.”
Trump signed an executive order to bring back the maximum-pressure sanctions regime aimed at “driving Iran’s oil exports to zero” earlier this week. He expressed a lack of enthusiasm about the sanctions, but said that “it’s very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
When asked by JI at the White House if he would support an Israeli strike on Iran, Trump was noncommittal, saying, “We’ll see what happens.” The following day, he wrote a Truth Social post in which he said he would “much prefer a Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement, which will let Iran peacefully grow and prosper. We should start working on it immediately, and have a big Middle East Celebration when it is signed and completed … Reports that the United States, working in conjunction with Israel, is going to blow Iran into smithereens, ARE GREATLY EXAGGERATED.” …SOURCE