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

Hey, I'm Tracy Mumford. There is a lot happening right now. The Headlines podcast from The New York Times will catch you up on the latest in 10 minutes or less. We'll take you inside breaking news and big investigations from The Times newsroom, plus bring you the stories that make you go, "Huh, whoa, I didn't know that." Listen to our show, The Headlines, every weekday morning wherever you get your podcasts. From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitroeff. This is The Daily. 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 Hezbollah there 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.

Pleasure being here. Thank you.

So in the last several days, we have seen a stunning break between the US 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, Natalie, there's no, at least not in my vocabulary, not in English and not even in Hebrew, there are not enough words to describe the magnitude of what we are seeing from the point of view of Israeli politics, of Netanyahu's legacy, his present chances to be reelected. And of course, from the point of view of the Israeli public, 3 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, a joint US-Israeli strike together in order to topple the regime. So until then, 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 US and Israel is in question now that we see the terms of this MOU between Iran and the United States?

Yeah, Natalie, it's 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 relationship 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, I said, well, they're allowed to have them. What am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them?

Yes, sir.

It doesn't work that way, you know. Implying that if other countries like Saudi Arabia, like Israel have them, why not Iran? And missiles aren't the problem. Missiles are— they hurt 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. And this is, I think, as we talked to the last time we were on the show, a fundamental issue for Netanyahu politically because he's made this pledge that he will protect Israel from Hezbollah.

Right.

Israel wanted to have these two issues, two fronts, totally separated. To get the Hezbollah issue and the Lebanese issue out of the agreement, that the agreement will only deal with Iran, the US, nuclear, et cetera. Iran wanted to make the connection because they felt they are in debt because Hezbollah intervened to help them. Now they need to help Hezbollah. 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 mouthpieces for Prime Minister Netanyahu in the Israeli media, the radio stations, and mainly in Channel 14. That's a TV station. I think maybe it can be equivalent to Newsmax on steroids. Very, very supportive of Netanyahu. Doesn't matter what Netanyahu does. He can flip and turn and he can say one thing and the next day the other. They will support him. And also, until last week, they also supported Trump. Their admiration, their compliments, their flattering to the president was second only to their attitude towards Prime Minister Netanyahu. But the second it came clear that Trump is going to sign the agreement, they flipped, all of them. And they started a slander campaign. They said that Trump betrayed Israel. They turned on Vice President Pence. They called him anti-Semite. They said that he is the legitimizer of terrorism, the legitimizer of Hezbollah.

Wow.

And I think the worst was what they said against Kushner and Whitcoff. And one of the main anchor persons for Channel 14 said they did that because they are Jewish.

What?

I know it sounds unbelievable, but in the Israeli television, they said that they are Jewish, Jew boys, you know, slander terms about Jews. They said that they received bribe from Qatar. Once they identified the enemy, Vice President Pence and the two advisors, they don't care. They just Lashed on them.

Ronan, can you just decode that? Because it sounds really difficult, honestly, to parse. These are Israelis who are lobbying antisemitic attacks against Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Like, what is happening there?

These people, they don't care about anything except one thing, which is to support Prime Minister Netanyahu. Someone I know called them the Zumbibi, meaning they do everything Prime Minister wants them to do and support any of his 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 Mossad, the head of Teshin Bet or the Attorney General. So the only person they could 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 antisemitic tropes.

They will do everything they believe can assist Prime Minister Netanyahu in schlepping the blame on someone else, even if this includes antisemitic 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. They didn't went down to this level. Anachnu chayavim la'amshich lif ol bel vanon. Anachnu chayavim la'amshich liyot atzma'im. But they did say. Israel is going to defend itself whether against Iran or against Lebanon?

Israel will stand strong no matter what happens on all fronts of its struggle for freedom from Hezbollah.

They say if the situation is so bad and we're all alone there's only one person who can take care of the situation and knows how to handle this situation—of course Prime Minister Netanyahu. Whatever the truce agreement, the MOU says, Israel will continue to do whatever it believes it's necessary, or Netanyahu believes it's necessary. Israel will continue. And this is what has basically led to an ongoing more friction and more clashes between the Israeli and the American administration.

These government figures are essentially saying, we will defy the truce when it comes to fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is pretty amazing. Yes. As that happens, that elicits a reaction from the vice president, from JD Vance.

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 talk to me about that.

Yeah. Vance comes out publicly and is extraordinarily blunt. He said to Israel, effectively, we're your 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 it 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, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who've attacked the deal. And I guess my response to them would be, what is your exact proposal?

And then Vance also talked to our colleague Ross Douthat and said that these two hard-right ministers in Netanyahu's cabinet, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, should not be attacking this deal without offering any other way out of the war.

You know, you're a country of 9 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. This—

Hezbollah attacks into Israel. Which elicits an Israeli military response on Beirut.

Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon killed at least 7 people, including 2 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 a reality we can accept, and this is exactly why the IDF continues to operate in southern Lebanon. And in that way, Lebanon is sort of clear, looking like the center of the question of whether this will hold or not.

Right. Iran said briefly that the strait 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 peace 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, Iran, 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 might 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 in Lebanon stops, which in turn hinges on how much control Iran and the US 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 continued to send drones over the border to Israel after this deal was signed.

That attack provoked a response. Iran has the full control over what Hezbollah is doing. I suspect that 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 ordered the IDF to react, then he gets himself into another confrontation with Trump. If he doesn't, then he gets into a confrontation with his own constituency at home, his base, because they say, you're not reacting to what Hezbollah 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 Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump, and at the end, to an anger of the president that would lead to forcing Israel not just to a ceasefire, but to a total withdrawal from Lebanon.

In a sense, trying to set up a pitched battle between Trump and Netanyahu, stirring the pot. Does that feel right to you, Mark? Yes, I know.

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 Strait of Hormuz, and now they've got a lot of money coming to them in what were frozen assets, right? So a return to a full-scale war imperils 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 of if they can keep the sort of temperature at the right level where it can continue to imperil 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 Hezbollah by, for example, attacking Beirut. 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 behave better. So Netanyahu has framed these attacks as defensive, right? We are responding to Hezbollah's attacks on Israel and we have a 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 patience, 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 has for attacking Hezbollah in this way, 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 as something 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 obeying Trump than to gain from it.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, I think, is deliberating between obeying Trump or going against him and supporting a much stronger 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's 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. Okay. I think he's 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 versus 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, uh, 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 U.S. 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 JD Vance was raising when he told Israel, you know, back off, we're your 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 these real questions of, you know, might the United States actually condition aid or pull aid? 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 Netanyahu 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 has 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 the Israelis don't understand how much damage Netanyahu's moves in the last, you know, 6 months, and the way that it's seen that 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, and the US find itself in the quicksands of the Persian Gulf. And the damage of that will last for very long time.

And Natalie, let me just add that 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 a wedge between the US and Israel, theoretically their common enemy.

Something that Netanyahu for decades has been trying to get an American president, any 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 smoothed 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 depends on what would happen with Iran and what would happen with Hezbollah, because now Israel is sort of handcuffed by the agreement. And if the agreement ends up with Iran having nuclear capability of sort, they're having the high-enriched uranium, nothing would happen to the missiles, they would continue to support the proxies, then the Israelis would have a difficulty with that. But this is for the future and for the negotiation with Iran. I think besides that, the Israelis would be happy to forgive, would be happy to put this away. Israel likes the US more than any other country in the world by far. And this friction, the Israelis would be happy if this is over.

And Mark, on the US side?

I think in the 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 it's been particularly acute in the last 2.5, 3 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, is sort of reflects what Ronan is talking about, the fear in 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 of this moment.

Well, Mark, Ronan, 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 to sign the most significant piece of housing legislation in more than 3 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 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 rebuke of the conflict yet. The resolution doesn't have the force of law, but it did represent a symbolically important break with the president by some in the GOP. The measure passed 50 to 48, with 4 Republicans joining Democrats in favor. Today's episode was produced by Ricky Novetski, Caitlin O'Keefe, and Jessica Chung. It was edited by Paige Cowett and Liz O'Balen and contains music by Dan Powell and Elisheba Ittoop.

Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Mott. Oxley. That's it for The Daily. I'm Natalie Kitroeff. See you tomorrow.

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