US ally puts Iran deal in jeopardy as top official urges defiance of Trump

As President Donald Trump works to secure a deal to end the U.S. war against Iran — one that he claimed was imminent just days ago — a top official for a major U.S. ally broke ranks Monday and urged his own nation’s leader to “call Trump” directly by phone and “pound the table.”

That official is Israel Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir, who demanded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu call Trump to inform him that Israel was “not willing to accept” the terms Iran has proposed as conditions to end the war — namely, that Israel halt its bombardment of Lebanon.

“I call on the prime minister: Pick up the phone, call Trump, go to him, and pound the table,” Ben-Gvir said during a press conference in Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Post reported. “Make it clear that the State of Israel is not willing to accept, not willing to contain.”

Iran has long insisted that any peace agreement include a halt to Israel’s bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, which since early April has killed more than 3,100 Lebanese and injured nearly 10,000, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.

On April 17, Trump said that Israel was “prohibited” from “bombing Lebanon any longer,” to which Israel responded by bombing Lebanon the next day, including strikes that killed four paramedics. Israel has continued its bombing campaign of southern Lebanon, and on Tuesday, expanded its ground invasion beyond a demarcation line it had established in mid-April, roughly a month after its most recent ground invasion.

The deal Trump appeared to be nearing with Iranian officials, while not public, likely included Tehran’s long-held demand that Israel halt its bombing campaign of Lebanon. Since news broke that such a deal may be imminent, Ben-Gvir and other Israeli officials have only ramped up escalatory rhetoric in regards to its northern neighbor.

“We need to cut the electricity, turn off the switch, and make it clear to them: If there is terrorism, you will suffer the consequences,” Ben-Gvir said Monday, calling for the entirety of southern Lebanon’s energy infrastructure to be systematically disabled, a move that would likely exacerbate the ongoing humanitarian crisis.