Some Israelis Favor Attacking Iran, Expressing Skepticism About Talks

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in the past listed the three main threats facing Israel as “Iran, Iran and Iran.” He has largely staked his career on being Israel’s protector against Iranian nuclear ambitions, has openly confronted Tehran in recent months and is at war with Iran-backed militias around the region.

Many Israelis were therefore surprised when President Trump, with Mr. Netanyahu sitting beside him, announced on Monday that the United States would engage in “direct” negotiations with Iran on Saturday in a last-ditch effort to rein in the country’s nuclear program.

Mr. Trump’s statement was splashed over the front pages of Israel’s major newspapers on Tuesday morning. As the day went on, pundits increasingly weighed in, parsing the pros and cons of the unexpected development.

By early evening in Israel, Mr. Netanyahu had issued a video statement before his departure from Washington in which he largely strove to emphasize his close alliance and alignment with the Trump administration.

“We agree that Iran will not have nuclear weapons,” he said. That, he explained, would mean the total destruction of Iran’s vast nuclear program, blowing up facilities and dismantling all equipment, all carried out by the United States.

But should Iran drag out the talks, Mr. Netanyahu said, the second option would be a military one. “Everyone understands that,” he said, adding, “We discussed it at length.”

With Iran’s nuclear program considered to be at its most advanced stage ever, some Israeli experts have suggested that now would be the perfect time to attack Tehran’s nuclear facilities. Iran’s traditional allies on Israel’s borders are either weakened, in the case of Hezbollah in Lebanon; or fallen, in the case of the Assad regime in Syria. That means any attack could take advantage of Tehran’s vulnerability after Israeli strikes in the fall took out air defenses around key nuclear sites.

If direct talks take place, they would be the first official face-to-face negotiations between the two countries since Mr. Trump abandoned the Obama-era nuclear accord seven years ago at the urging of Mr. Netanyahu, who had denounced it as a “bad deal.”

Mr. Netanyahu said in the Oval Office on Monday that if Iran could be absolutely prevented from obtaining a nuclear weapon by diplomatic means, “that would be a good thing.”

Many Israelis would agree.

“The ideal for Israel would be a very good agreement,” said Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher and head of the Gulf program at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. He said he hoped Mr. Trump’s approach would be “more aggressive” than that of previous administrations in dealings with Iran.

“But there is nothing ideal in the world,” Mr. Guzansky added, expressing broadly held concerns that Mr. Trump “may be willing to be more flexible than Israel would be” and that a gap may open up over the issue between Israel and Washington.

The interests of the two sides already differ, Mr. Guzansky said, in that Israel sits near Iran and has to live with its proxies on its borders, while the United States is thousands of miles away and has other pressing problems. He said he hoped that Mr. Netanyahu would continue to have the ear of the Trump administration and that Israel would be kept in the picture.

Some Israeli analysts were banking on any such talks failing, noting that the Iranians were tough negotiators.

Many took consolation in Mr. Trump’s pronouncement that Tehran would be “in great danger” if it failed to reach an accord and pointed to reports of the Pentagon’s recent deployment of at least six B-2 bombers to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia as concrete evidence of a military option against Iran.

“There is no chance the ayatollahs will agree to dictates,” Ariel Kahana, a diplomatic commentator for Israel Hayom, a right-wing daily, wrote on Tuesday, anticipating the Trump administration’s imposition of tough conditions on Iran for an agreement.

“Therefore,” Mr. Kahana continued, “a military clash with Iran is only a matter of time.”