The U.S. Demanded That Israel Conduct A Unilateral Strike Against Iran: Report

Washington told Tel Aviv during bilateral talks between the two allies that it should prosecute its own attack against Iran without American backing, a report revealed on Saturday.

The administration of President Donald Trump wanted to shield itself from the political fallout that may have resulted from such an operation before the November midterm elections, sources told Israeli daily newspaper Maariv in a report published on Saturday.

Instead, the U.S. government tried to convince the administration of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that it was in its political interest to conduct such an attack before the upcoming Israeli legislative elections on October 27th.

The U.S. has, according to Maariv, since dropped the demand for an attack which, according to Israeli Defense Forces Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, would have obliged Israel to postpone the elections in the face of probable Iranian retaliation.

Trump has recently sought to cool tensions with Iran, stating on Thursday that “productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran” would mean that Washington “will not be attacking Iran any time prior to the Midterm Elections.”

The timing of this de-escalation appears deliberate and politically motivated; a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that Trump’s approval ratings had reached record lows just one month before the November vote.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center conducted between September 28th and October 4th implied that much of this disillusionment with the president stems from his prosecution of hostilities with Iran, with two thirds of Americans surveyed saying that they either “strongly” or “somewhat” disapprove of Trump’s “handling of the Iran conflict.”

Netanyahu’s stance on the alleged demands made by Washington during U.S.-Israeli talks, as well as the suggestion that an attack on Iran would have benefited his chances of electoral success, remains unclear.

Netanyahu is the longest serving Prime Minister in Israel’s history, having been in office for a total of 19 cumulative years: 1996-1999, 2009-2021 and 2022 to the present. However, the Israeli elections are set to be a close race between Netanyahu’s governing coalition and a coalition of opposition parties.

Recent polls point to a neck-and-neck race, with one survey released by Maariv on Friday showing both the ruling and opposition blocs on 52 seats in the Israeli Knesset (parliament). 61 seats are needed for a majority.

Since February, the Israeli public, unlike the American public, has largely supported its government’s participation in the Iran war, a fact which may have factored in to the American suggestion that further strikes on Tehran by Tel Aviv would have given Netanyahu a potential electoral advantage.