Netanyahu and Biden to hold call on Iran Wednesday after weeks of silence
US said to be frustrated after Israel declined to share information about its plans, reportedly will try to ‘shape the limitations’ of the response to Iranian missile attack
US President Joe Biden will hold a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to discuss Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran for its October 1 ballistic missile attack, Netanyahu’s office confirmed, amid reports of growing frustration in Washington over Jerusalem’s unwillingness to share details of its intentions.
The US, along with the Middle East, has been on edge awaiting Israel’s response to the roughly 200 ballistic missiles launched by Tehran last week, and has been trying to dissuade it from mounting a response that it would view as disproportionate.
But despite its efforts to play a role in tempering Israel’s approach, including by urging it to avoid striking oil facilities or nuclear sites, the US has found itself in the dark, with Jerusalem declining to share any details of its plans with its ally, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
This has compounded growing frustration in Washington, US officials with knowledge on the matter said, which has found itself blindsided by actions Israel has taken against the Hezbollah terror group in recent weeks, including the assassination of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
The lack of communication led to a blunt exchange between US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant when Gallant phoned his counterpart on September 27 to inform him of the strike on Nasrallah after the fact.
“Excuse me, what did you say?” Austin reportedly asked Gallant. In a second phone call that same day, Austin asked his Israeli counterpart if Jerusalem was ready to defend itself on its own, as the US hadn’t had time to deploy its forces to deflect any immediate reprisal, the report said.
Despite Austin’s warning, the US was able to assist Israel days later, on October 1, intercepting around a dozen Iranian missiles and framing Tehran’s attack as “defeated and ineffective.”
Still, Israel has remained reticent, and the US declined to confirm whether or not it had received any assurances that it would be notified ahead of time when Jerusalem mounts its reprisal.
In the immediate aftermath of the Iranian missile assault, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had warned Iran there would be “severe consequences for this attack, and we will work with Israel to make that the case.”
Hoping to avoid being left in the lurch, the Axios news site reported, Biden will reiterate, during his expected call with Netanyahu, the US’s opposition to any action against Iran that it deems disproportionate.
“We want to use the call to try and shape the limitations of the Israeli retaliation,” explained a US official familiar with the matter.
But efforts to dissuade Israel from targeting particularly sensitive sites may already be too late, as a Netanyahu aide told Axios that the prime minister will only brief Biden once a decision has been made.
Biden and his aides have spoken of a possible call with Netanyahu — the first in close to 50 days — since the end of September amid a growing rift over Netanyahu’s handling of the war against Hamas in Gaza and what the US perceives as a lack of strategy for how to bring it to an end.
The distrust between Biden and Netanyahu has resulted in Gallant, widely considered a voice of relative moderation, being seen as the administration’s preferred contact in the Israeli government.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu reportedly blocked Gallant from departing for a one-day visit to the US, where he was to have met with Austin and Sullivan on Israel’s planned retaliation against Iran, because he wished to speak to Biden about Iran himself before the defense minister departed.
To that end, Netanyahu made several unsuccessful attempts in recent days to contact the president directly, an unnamed Israeli official told The Washington Post on Tuesday.
US officials denied the claim, saying that if Israel was saying that the US was “stiff-arming [Netanyahu] and refusing a call, that’s not true.”
“In fact,” an official added, “we were already planning on having them speak later this week and the Israelis know that.”
Gallant was expected to take senior Defense Ministry officials with him on the now-postponed trip and to discuss coordination with the US on Israel’s response to Iran, as well as US support for the defense of Israel in the event of an Iranian response, and issues relating to the deployment of US forces in the area.
Netanyahu was also reported to have conditioned the defense minister’s trip on the security cabinet first approving Israel’s plans for its retaliation against Iran, thereby limiting the US’s ability to influence it.
The Defense Ministry informed the Pentagon on Tuesday evening, hours before Gallant’s scheduled departure, that it was postponing his trip.
Netanyahu has been said to have blocked Gallant’s visits to Washington in the past, as well. In May 2023, he reportedly blocked him from visiting two separate times because he had yet to receive an invitation to the White House. In August 2023, he was widely understood to be barring other ministers from high-level meetings in Washington while he awaited one of his own.
Jacob Magid and Reuters contributed to this report.