Israeli official: US demanded we show restraint against Iran, but Trump didn’t hold back

An Israeli official expresses a rare bout of frustration with the Trump administration over its handling of the ongoing crisis with Iran.

Speaking to The Times of Israel, the Israeli diplomatic official points to what he calls the “justified” US feeling that it needed to respond to Iran’s shooting down of an American military helicopter on Monday night, even though it had previously called on Israel to show restraint in response to Iranian fire.

“The US understandably felt that not responding would have made them look weak, but when we said the same thing following attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, we were told by the administration to show restraint,” the Israeli official says.

While US officials have regularly expressed their frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in anonymous conversations with reporters in recent weeks and months, such ire has been almost unheard of from the Israeli side, as Jerusalem seeks to keep US President Donald Trump in its corner.

The decision by the Israeli official to speak out, even anonymously, points to growing angst in Jerusalem with the Trump administration’s handling of the Iran conflict.

While Trump did indeed express frustration both privately and publicly with Israeli decisions to aggressively respond to attacks from Iran and Hezbollah, he didn’t explicitly demand ahead of time that Netanyahu not carry out those strikes, the Israeli official acknowledges.

Accordingly, the Israeli official admits there were limited practical implications to the US warnings to Israel about not retaliating harshly against Iran and Hezbollah.