Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a muted reaction to the emerging understandings between the Biden administration and Iran over its nuclear program over the weekend. Netanyahu issued a statement – not attributed to him personally but to his office – that implicitly came out against the prisoner deal that was announced, but did so using laconic and limited language; it simply stated that "Israel's position is well known," without taking a clear-cut position against the deal.
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An Israeli official has said that Israel's opposition to a deal with Iran only pertains to the full agreement from 2015, against which Netanyahu went on a global campaign (including by addressing the US Congress). This time around, the Israeli official told me, there is no reason to create friction with the administration since the emerging understandings stop short of a full-fledged deal, adding that the $6 billion dollars that Iran will get were not going to hurt Israel.
Under the emerging understandings, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, Iran has slowed the pace of producing highly enriched uranium and has even diluted its stockpiles of such material. In a likely related development, a prisoner swap and unfreezing of funds was announced.
"These are frozen Iranian funds," the official explained. The Israeli official further added that the prevailing assessment is that the close talks between Washington and Tehran on limiting the latter's nuclear program and on the prisoner exchange do not hurt the chances of normalization with Saudi Arabia. "Mohammed bin Salman also signed a deal with Iran [on renewing diplomatic ties]; so there is no reason why he should come out against the US for striking its own set of understandings with the Islamic Republic."
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