JERUSALEM, Israel – President Trump has rejected Iran’s latest Strait of Hormuz proposal and, for now, suggests that talks are likely to resume instead of the war option as the conflict enters its seventh month.
The talks could resume this week after the White House rejected Iran’s demands to restart the negotiations, which included a 7-day truce, followed by the reopening of the Strait and the release of billions of dollars in frozen funds.
In an interview with Axios, Trump explained, “They want to make a deal, but it’s not the deal I want to make.”
He added, “It is what we would have, maybe, agreed to a year ago. They overplayed their hand.”
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz told NBC News that Iran’s offer was “cynical” after it attacked international shipping just a few months ago,
“I think it’s kind of common sense that the president doesn’t have a lot of confidence this time after we just tried a few months ago,” Waltz stated.
Tehran says it won’t back down and still demands that the Strait of Hormuz be reopened.
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In Israel, media reports indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret four-hour trip to Abu Dhabi, meeting secretly with Emirati President Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. So far, neither side is commenting.
This comes amid reports that the U.A.E. had directly warned Netanyahu of a Hamas attack before the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre and that those warnings went unheeded. The reports, continuing to circulate in the media, have been denied by both sides.
The Prime Minister’s Office also denied a report in The Atlantic that Egypt had warned Israel before the attack.
In a post on X over the weekend, Netanyahu’s office wrote, “It was denied at the time and is being recycled to manipulate the Israeli public. On October 11, 2023, Egypt officially denied that it had warned Israel of the October 7 attack. In the months preceding October 7, Prime Minister Netanyahu neither met nor spoke with Abbas Kamel, then head of Egypt’s General Intelligence Service.”
The reports come one month before Israel’s general elections and are seen by some as a political ploy against Netanyahu.
Meanwhile, Israel and Morocco are upgrading their diplomatic ties on the sixth anniversary of the Abraham Accords.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita met at the U.N. last week and agreed to appoint ambassadors and turn their diplomatic missions into full embassies.
And in Jerusalem, as more foreign airlines carrying tourists return to Israel, nearly 2,000 Christians from 70 nations have come to Jerusalem to celebrate the biblical holiday of Sukkot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles, to show their love and support for the Jewish people in the land of Israel.
