Netanyahu Pushes Back against Iran Diplomacy

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is pushing back against an apparent European effort to open a dialogue between the United States and Iran. Netanyahu over the weekend spoke by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron, who last week met on the sidelines of the G7 summit with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. Thereafter, US President Donald Trump expressed a willingness to hold nuclear-related negotiations with his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani. Against this backdrop, and amid heightened tensions in northern Israel, Netanyahu told Macron that, “when Iran is stepping up its aggression in the region, it is precisely the wrong time to talk.” President Trump withdrew from the 2015 multilateral nuclear agreement in May of last year and re-imposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic Republic, which have decimated Tehran’s economy and reduced its oil exports by over 80 percent. In response, Iran this summer began curbing its commitments to the accord, notably by increasing the level to which it enriches uranium. The US also accused the mullahs of perpetrating numerous recent attacks on oil tankers in vital Gulf waterways, including the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-third of the global oil supply passes. According to sources, Israeli officials are concerned that a US-Iran diplomatic breakthrough is on the horizon, which could potentially lead to a new nuclear agreement that is anathema to Jerusalem.