In a striking personal disclosure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed Friday that it was US President Donald Trump who had explained the full dimensions of Iran’s nuclear threat to him, rather than the other way around. This revelation came during a wide-ranging press conference in which Netanyahu also announced that Iran had lost its uranium enrichment and ballistic missile capabilities after twenty days of war and denied Israeli responsibility for US involvement in the conflict. Netanyahu used the disclosure to illustrate the depth and reciprocity of the Trump-Israel alliance.
The prime minister described their partnership as the most closely coordinated between two world leaders he had ever witnessed. He rejected the suggestion that Israel had maneuvered Trump into the conflict, pointing to Trump’s deep and independently formed convictions about Iran’s nuclear danger. Netanyahu framed the two leaders as genuine strategic equals drawn together by shared conviction rather than by Israeli pressure.
Netanyahu confirmed Israel’s unilateral strike on the South Pars gas compound and disclosed Trump’s request to hold off on further attacks on Iranian gas infrastructure. He presented both facts as natural features of a close and transparent alliance. Netanyahu maintained throughout that Israel’s military autonomy remained fully intact despite its close coordination with Washington.
On Iran’s Hormuz threats, Netanyahu was dismissive. He labeled them blackmail and proposed overland pipeline routes from the Arabian Peninsula to Israeli and Mediterranean ports as a lasting structural solution. Netanyahu argued this would permanently remove the Hormuz chokepoint as an instrument of Iranian geopolitical pressure.
Netanyahu concluded with observations about Iran’s leadership chaos. He said Mojtaba had not been seen publicly and admitted genuine uncertainty about who was governing Iran. Netanyahu pointed to visible competition among Tehran’s power factions and concluded that this instability, combined with military losses, was accelerating the war’s conclusion.