Reports: Netanyahu says US, Iran about to reach ‘mini-deal’ that Israel can ‘live with’

Several Hebrew media outlets say Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu divulged purported details of the impending deal between the United States and Iran over a renewed nuclear agreement.

The reports say Netanyahu downplayed the negotiations as closing in on a “mini-agreement, not an agreement,” citing several unnamed lawmakers who took part in the closed-door, three-hour Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting. Some of the reports say Netanyahu apparently intended for his remarks to be leaked to the press.

“This isn’t the deal we are familiar with,” he reportedly says, in reference to the 2015 nuclear deal staunchly opposed by Jerusalem and which Washington left in 2018. “This is a mini-agreement, we will manage to deal with it.”

The “mini-agreement” will allegedly include an Iranian promise not to enrich uranium to more than 60% purity, in exchange for the US unfreezing tens of billions of dollars in Iranian funds held abroad and for the countries carrying out a prisoner swap deal.

This means there will be no significant sanctions relief. While some reports say Netanyahu said Israel will also oppose these understandings and won’t be bound by them, other reports say MKs understood that Israel will be able to “live with them.”