COOPERATION BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE US HAS REACHED NEW HEIGHTS UNDER PRESIDENT TRUMP

Israel and the US have the same goals in the war against Iran

The joint military campaign against the regime of the ayatollahs reflects an unprecedented strategic alignment between the two allies. 

 

By Fiamma Nirenstein  

 

JNS

Mar 7, 2026

 

 

 

Cooperation between Israel and the US has reached new heights under President Donald Trump. On December 29 at Mar-a-Lago (above), Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu reached an agreement on much of the strategy against Iran.

 

If the United States and Israel ultimately succeed in freeing the world from the regime of the ayatollahs, it will be the result of intense effort, careful coordination and enormous determination.

The sky over Israel these days has been loud, day and night. On the seventh day of the conflict, Israelis continued to run up and down to shelters, sometimes with little warning. In some places, a missile destroyed the early-warning system, leaving only the immediate siren. Yet despite the tension, the sense of unity and determination has not been shaken.

The pilots say it best. After five-hour missions—repeated again and again—they speak calmly into microphones about their flights. Up and down through the skies in a relentless rhythm of war.

Side by side with American forces, Israeli pilots divide their targets, refuel in the air and verify that every step of the campaign is synchronized. The cooperation between the two militaries is exact. Even small details are coordinated.

Sometimes deception is simple. Pilots avoid parking aircraft in obvious places near their bases. Others send messages about meeting a brother for a morning run at eight o’clock. In reality, they are already flying toward Tehran.

This level of coordination did not begin overnight. On Dec. 29 at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu had already reached an agreement on much of the strategy. The danger of Iranian aggression was looming, and the two leaders understood it.

Since then, Israel has been operating on a level of coordination with the United States that is unprecedented—and on equal footing.

Do the two countries want the same outcome? At this moment, it seems they do.

Trump has described the campaign as the path toward a decisive victory. Iranian infrastructure, military installations, ships and missile launchers are being destroyed, he says, minute by minute. Without the war, he argues, Iran would eventually have attacked.

He also points to the contradictions of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who apologizes and speaks of negotiations with Arab states even as Iranian forces continue to strike vital infrastructure—airports, hotels and other civilian facilities.

When Trump recalls the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, while describing Iran’s cruelty, he highlights something deeper than a political alliance. The United States and Israel are bound together in the same struggle against Islamist terrorism.

Is regime change the shared objective? For the past few days, Trump has spoken openly about “total surrender,” while creating the conditions for it through relentless military pressure.

Netanyahu has been equally clear. As Israeli warplanes take off around the clock, he has stated that the operation must remove the existential threat posed by Iran’s terrorist regime. It must dismantle the nuclear program and destroy Iran’s military and strategic capabilities.

These are also the conditions Trump had set for the diplomatic agreement that ultimately never materialized: the elimination of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile arsenal, its network of proxy forces and its broader military power.

Yet the regime in Tehran continues to cling to power. Its defiance threatens to prevent what Netanyahu has described as the necessary conditions for the Iranian people themselves to take their destiny into their own hands.

Such a moment could open the door to peace. “Surrender is a dream,” Pezeshkian reportedly told Trump, rejecting the idea outright.

For the Shi’ite revolutionary regime, abandoning its mission of spreading Islamic revolution at any cost would mean abandoning its identity.

Yet Trump has hinted that within Iran’s military—and even among the Revolutionary Guards—there may be factions beginning to recognize the reality of the situation. As ships explode, barracks are destroyed and senior commanders are eliminated, some may conclude that surrender, at least for now, is the only possible path.

Not an agreement, then. A surrender. At that moment, Netanyahu says, the Iranian people must seize what could be a historic opportunity.

“Israel has nothing against you,” he told them. “Only against the regime.”

Israel has applied the same logic in its response to Hezbollah attacks. While warning civilians in Southern Lebanon to move away from danger, Israeli leaders have urged the Lebanese government to restrain Hezbollah and allow its citizens to live outside the war imposed by Iran. And for the first time, Lebanese officials themselves are taking action.

Those now demanding that Hezbollah stop exploiting the moment and dragging the entire country into war are not only Israeli officials but Lebanese ones, speaking out spontaneously for the first time. That, in itself, is something entirely new.

Israel, still wounded by the massacre of Oct. 7 and after two years of continuous conflict, is sending its reserve forces back to the front.

The objective is clear: to complete a strategic turning point.

The enemy operates under the authority of Tehran. When a regime openly declares its intention to destroy you, it would be foolish not to take it seriously. They are fully aligned—not only strategically, but also in a clear and common moral purpose.