A senior administration official confirmed Sunday that the White House was aware of Barnea’s trip, but did not specify whether the Biden administration was involved in planning it. Barnea will be the third senior Israeli official to visit Washington in recent days to discuss the Iran deal, following Defense Minister Benny Gantz and National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata. As part of a renewed Israeli media push over the past two weeks, the Mossad director made rare comments last Thursday, telling reporters the deal was “very bad for Israel” and “based on lies.” Barnea, Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Gantz have been united in their message that the deal is “bad” and Israel will not be bound by it, reserving the right to take action against Iran’s nuclear program. Ahead of Barnea’s visit, Lapid said Israel’s military and intelligence services are redoubling efforts to combat the threat of a nuclear Iran. “The IDF and the Mossad have been instructed by us to prepare for any scenario. We will be ready to act to preserve Israel’s security. The Americans understand it, the world understands it, and Israeli society must also know it,” Lapid told reporters Sunday at a briefing at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem. Get The Times of Israel Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories By signing up, you agree to the terms Among those scenarios, Lapid also said that “a credible military threat” would have to be “put on the table” in order to pressure Iran into a better deal. Prime Minister Yair Lapid hosts a press conference at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem, August 28, 2022. (Amos Ben Gershom / GPO) Lapid added that this threat – created in large part by the presence of US munitions capable of penetrating underground bunkers – is “what forced the Iranians to sign last time”. A source close to the matter confirmed that Israel is pressuring the United States to issue such a threat. “A credible military threat is what we believe will lead to a good deal. This is the language Iran understands,” according to the senior government official, who said Israel has made that position clear to the Americans. Under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel fought the original 2015 deal in the court of public opinion and in a highly controversial direct address by Netanyahu to the US Congress, coordinated without the involvement of the White House. The US pulled out of the deal under former President Donald Trump in 2018 and has been negotiating a return for months under Biden. Lapid and former prime minister Naftali Bennett – who is currently abroad on vacation – took the discussion to private channels, trying to avoid the implications of the relationship between Israel and the Obama administration. “We must not get to the situation we were in in 2015. To this day, we are paying for the damage caused by Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, after which the US government ended its dialogue with us and did not allow Israel to make amendments deal,” Lapid said. Netanyahu, however, has attacked his successors for failing to deliver as a potential deal looms. As he said, no deal can deal with Iran’s nuclear program. Instead, Israel should pursue a combination of crippling sanctions and the creation of a credible military threat. Likud party leader MK Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the media at the Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv on July 26, 2022. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90) Lapid and Gantz said Israel could live with a deal, but that the current one is unsatisfactory. “This deal is bad. It was not good when it was signed in 2015. Today the risks inherent in it are even greater. It is closer to its expiration date and Iran is in a different place technologically,” Lapid told reporters. “We told the American people, ‘This is not what President Biden wanted,’” Lapid said of the current draft agreement. “It’s not that [Biden] that he talked about during his visit to Israel is not what he signed on to in the Jerusalem Declaration,” Lapid added, building on his comments last week that the current draft deal breaks Biden’s red lines on limiting nuclear Iran’s ambitions. Lapid reiterated several key points of contention between the current, unpublished draft agreement and Israel’s position. He stressed that a better deal would be “longer and stronger,” borrowing American language to explain how a resumption of negotiations would be better for countries worried about Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons ambitions. Specifically, Lapid said Israel would like a deal with a later expiration date and with “tighter” oversight, and that also covers Iran’s long-range ballistic missile program and “engagement in terrorism” in the wider Middle East. The senior government official said Israel is willing to release “a minimal amount” of funds to Iran through the lifting of sanctions, but did not specify whether there was a figure Israel could accept. Lapid argued last week that the deal would allow $100 billion a year to flow into Iran’s coffers, money he said could go toward financing terrorism. “We can live longer and stronger, even though we have reservations about it,” the official said. Netanyahu is to meet with Lapid for a security briefing that will focus on Iran, according to the senior government official. The meeting between the two is scheduled for Monday afternoon at the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem. The official added that one of the sticking points is Iran’s demand for its own guarantees that the US will not pull out of a deal again, but assessed that Tehran was unlikely to receive such guarantees. Last week, the US submitted its response to the latest draft of the nuclear deal. You are a devoted reader We are really glad that you read X Times of Israel articles last month. That’s why we started the Times of Israel ten years ago – to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world. So now we have a request. Unlike other media, we have not set up a paywall. But because the journalism we do is expensive, we invite readers to whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community. For just $6 a month you can support our quality journalism by enjoying Times of Israel ADS-FREE, as well as access to exclusive content available only to members of the Times of Israel Community. 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