If that is the case, then why – except for a few years when Donald Trump was president – has this issue been such a long-standing source of friction between Jerusalem and Washington, including now, with the renewal of negotiations between the world powers and Iran in Vienna last Monday?
If both countries are saying essentially the same thing – that Iran will never get nuclear weapons – why did the issue poison relations between former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former US president Barack Obama, and why is it now the first real public point of contention between President Joe Biden’s administration and that of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett?
The reason: for Israel, this is an existential issue to a degree that it is not for the United States.
To understand the differences between Washington and Jerusalem is to understand the different ways Israel and the US perceive the Iranian threat, the different traumas they bring to the issue, and the different points – or triggers – at which they feel military action will be needed to prevent Iran from going nuclear. READ MORE
