Official says Israel did not need to ask US for greenlight to attack Iran

A senior Israeli official tells Israeli press that Jerusalem “didn’t ask for and didn’t receive a green light from [US President Donald} Trump to attack Iran.”

“You have it wrong,” the senior official says in English.

“There is a different relationship now.”

The senior official says Israel is able to maintain that relationship with the US “because there is a large public in the US that [Israel] can influence, because public sentiment influences leaders. There is also a public that opposes, but there is a very strong base here, so you have strength that maybe doesn’t exist in other countries,” he says.

“Obama wrote this in his book. Read what he wrote in his autobiography. ‘I could do whatever I wanted, just not with Israel.’ There is a reason for this,” he says.

“With Trump it works in the opposite manner,” the senior official continues. “We agree on things, we don’t have that problem. But you also don’t need to get approval. He understands that we have existential needs.”

“You have to get to know him, you have to talk to him in a small forum, to understand how unique he is, how different he is,” the official says.