Netanyahu: I never asked Trump for permission to strike Iran last year, ‘I simply informed him’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterates that he never asked US President Donald Trump for permission to strike Iran ahead of the June 2025 Israeli campaign against the Islamic Republic, which the US eventually joined.

Netanyahu says he told Trump ahead of the campaign, “We are going into Iran, because I am not going to sit around waiting for our enemies – enemies who openly declare, at the top of their lungs, that they want to destroy us, and you [America] too, by the way,” in a speech in Hebrew at the Muni Expo conference for local officials in Tel Aviv.

“I am not going to let that happen. And that is why we are acting. I did not ask for permission. I simply informed him of our plan,” he says, adding, “I was pleased that he ultimately joined in toward the end of this very important action.”

Netanyahu said early on in last year’s campaign that he had informed the US of Israel’s plans to attack, though the comments now appear aimed at reaffirming Israel’s strategic independence amid tensions between Jerusalem and Washington over Trump’s ongoing pursuit of a deal with Tehran following this year’s US-Israeli campaign against Iran, and concerns over US limitations on Israeli military freedom of action.

In extended remarks defending Israel’s military achievements against Iran, Hamas in Gaza, and Hezbollah in Lebanon since the 2023 Hamas-led October 7 massacre, Netanyahu insists that “security is achieved through one rule…’If someone comes to kill you, rise early and kill him first,'” referring to a well-known Talmudic precept.

He says this reflects a shift in Israel’s security doctrine to be more preemptive, “to go out into the arena, to initiate, to attack,” saying “the most important thing we did” in the recent conflicts “was break the barrier of fear.”