Netanyahu is pressing Trump to attack Iran after the midterms, officials tell AP

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu is push­ing for an­oth­er wave of strikes on Iran af­ter Tues­day’s midterm elec­tions in the Unit­ed States, ac­cord­ing to two re­gion­al of­fi­cials and a third per­son fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter.

A re­turn to full-scale war with Iran could help Ne­tanyahu to form an emer­gency gov­ern­ment af­ter he and his far-right al­lies lost their par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty in last week’s elec­tions. U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump has al­ter­nat­ed be­tween threat­en­ing ma­jor strikes while push­ing for a deal with Iran.

The two of­fi­cials said diplo­mat­ic ef­forts have made progress, with Qatari me­di­a­tors hold­ing two rounds of talks last week with Iran­ian of­fi­cials. The two of­fi­cials said the me­di­a­tors are try­ing to ad­vance a frame­work for Iran to cease its at­tacks in the Strait of Hor­muz in re­turn for the U.S. lift­ing its block­ade on Iran’s ports.

They said more talks are planned for this week. The two of­fi­cials spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were dis­cussing clas­si­fied brief­in­gs they had re­ceived from Amer­i­can, and in one case Is­raeli, of­fi­cials.

One of­fi­cial said Ne­tanyahu was work­ing with se­nior of­fi­cials in the U.S. ad­min­is­tra­tion to per­suade Trump to launch a quick but ex­ten­sive air cam­paign and that the pres­i­dent does not ap­pear to have made a de­ci­sion.

Ne­tanyahu pressed for strikes dur­ing a call over the week­end with Trump, who would not com­mit to tak­ing mil­i­tary ac­tion, ac­cord­ing to a per­son who was briefed on it.

Oth­er U.S. al­lies in the Mid­dle East are warn­ing against more strikes, say­ing it would desta­bi­lize the re­gion and could lead Iran-al­lied Houthi rebels in Yemen to step up their at­tacks on Sau­di Ara­bia and Red Sea ship­ping, a third re­gion­al of­fi­cial said. Iran-backed mili­tias in Iraq could al­so get in­volved.

That of­fi­cial, and the per­son fa­mil­iar with the Ne­tanyahu-Trump call, were not au­tho­rized to speak pub­licly and spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty.

The Is­raeli gov­ern­ment did not im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment. The White House did not di­rect­ly re­spond to ques­tions about Ne­tanyahu and Trump’s dis­cus­sion of po­ten­tial new strikes dur­ing the week­end call.

Trump says he had a ‘very good’ call with Ne­tanyahu

Trump told re­porters on Sun­day that he and Ne­tanyahu had a “very good” call the day be­fore. He said they dis­cussed Iran but gave no de­tails. Ne­tanyahu had pushed for re­newed strikes even be­fore the Is­raeli elec­tion as he sought to high­light his se­cu­ri­ty cre­den­tials to a pub­lic deeply scarred by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack.

Asked at a news con­fer­ence Sat­ur­day about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of new U.S. strikes on Iran and Iran­ian re­tal­i­a­tion, U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio would not say what would hap­pen next but re­it­er­at­ed that the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion prefers a diplo­mat­ic so­lu­tion and that talks were on­go­ing.

“He hasn’t made a de­ci­sion,” Ru­bio said, re­fer­ring to Trump.

“He’d pre­fer to solve it diplo­mat­i­cal­ly,” Ru­bio said, adding that Trump has “in­cred­i­ble con­fi­dence” in mil­i­tary ac­tion if that is need­ed.

Ne­tanyahu has not com­ment­ed on Iran since the elec­tion, and there was no word from his of­fice on the lat­est call with Trump.

“The stand­off in the Gulf be­tween the U.S. and Iran is re­al­ly be­tween Qatar and Is­rael,” An­dreas Krieg, a pro­fes­sor at King’s Col­lege Lon­don, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked as an ad­vis­er to Qatar’s mil­i­tary, said on X.

“Qatar is tire­less­ly work­ing on a diplo­mat­ic of­framp with the re­gion’s back­ing while Is­rael is look­ing for mil­i­tary ways to throw the re­gion un­der the bus.”

Iran says it is pre­pared for war while pur­su­ing diplo­ma­cy

Iran wants guar­an­tees that the U.S. will im­ple­ment its side of any agree­ment. The U.S. and Is­rael have twice at­tacked Iran while it was en­gaged in ne­go­ti­a­tions over its dis­put­ed nu­clear pro­gram.

Iran­ian of­fi­cials say pub­licly they are pre­pared for war or diplo­ma­cy.

The new supreme leader, Ay­a­tol­lah Mo­jta­ba Khamenei, met with Iran’s mil­i­tary chiefs and said the re­sponse to “any kind and lev­el of threat” from the U.S. or Is­rael should be im­me­di­ate and with­out “ge­o­graph­ic lim­its,” and urged an ex­pan­sion of the list of po­ten­tial tar­gets.

A re­cent analy­sis by The As­so­ci­at­ed Press found that Iran­ian strikes on more than two dozen U.S. bases since the start of the war have caused bil­lions of dol­lars in equip­ment dam­age.

Khamenei has not been seen pub­licly since the open­ing strikes by Is­rael and the U.S. on Feb. 28 killed his fa­ther, the pre­vi­ous supreme leader.

Iran’s se­cu­ri­ty chief, Mohsen Reza­ei, told state tele­vi­sion that “the tone has com­plete­ly changed” from the U.S. and called it a “very good sign.” He gave no de­tails about the let­ter he re­ceived from U.S. Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance, which Iran ac­knowl­edged last week, and said he had not re­spond­ed.

Arab al­lies are caught in the mid­dle

Oc­to­ber saw the most at­tacks on com­mer­cial ships in the Strait of Hor­muz since March, as Iran has tried to ramp up eco­nom­ic pres­sure on the U.S. to get it to lift its block­ade.

The mood was grim at the Man­a­ma Di­a­logue, an an­nu­al se­cu­ri­ty sum­mit in Bahrain or­ga­nized by the In­ter­na­tion­al In­sti­tute for Strate­gic Stud­ies.

Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates pres­i­den­tial ad­vis­er An­war Gar­gash told at­ten­dees that the U.S. and Iran­ian stances are far apart, and “if these po­si­tions are not bridged, then we have to wor­ry about the worst.”

Gulf na­tions have spent bil­lions of dol­lars to boost their de­fense ca­pa­bil­i­ties since the war be­gan. Egypt’s For­eign Min­is­ter Badr Ab­de­lat­ty told the gath­er­ing in Bahrain that the next es­ca­la­tion “will be more dan­ger­ous, more de­struc­tive, and it will lead to nowhere.”

Chi­na will send a spe­cial en­voy to Iran, Oman and Sau­di Ara­bia in ear­ly to mid-No­vem­ber, For­eign Min­istry spokesper­son Mao Ning told re­porters Mon­day.

“The Mid­dle East Gulf re­gion should not be­come an are­na for great-pow­er ri­val­ry and geopo­lit­i­cal con­flict,” Chi­nese Pres­i­dent Xi Jin­ping told Oman’s sul­tan, ac­cord­ing to a read­out from Chi­na’s For­eign Min­istry. Chi­na and Oman called for a re­turn to di­a­logue. —JERUSALEM (AP)

________

Sto­ry by CARA AN­NA, SAMY MAGDY and AAMER MAD­HANI | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Samy Magdy re­port­ed from New York and Mad­hani from Wash­ing­ton. Vic­to­ria East­wood in Cairo, Ka­nis Le­ung in Hong Kong and Katie Marie Davies in Lon­don con­tributed to this re­port.