Israel Plotted to Kill Iran's Peace Negotiators: Report
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Trump administration officials believed Israel intended to kill Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf during ceasefire negotiations that began in April, per the New York Times.
- The US asked other regional countries to warn Iran about the Israeli targeting, though the two officials had already been removed from a joint US-Israel target list in late March to enable talks.
- In an April incident, Pakistani fighter jets escorted a delegation of more than 70 Iranians from the Iran-Pakistan border to Islamabad; on the return leg, Iranian security detected two Israeli fighter jets entering Iranian airspace to target Ghalibaf's plane, forcing an emergency landing in Mashhad and an eight-hour land journey back to Tehran.
- The Washington Post corroborated the NYT reporting and noted "cracks emerged" in US-Israel coordination after Israel assassinated Iranian national security chief Ali Larijani in March.
- Trump told reporters in late March that Israel had "wiped out everybody," making it difficult to find negotiating partners.
- Quincy Institute's Trita Parsi wrote that Israel is "a government as terrified of peace" obsessed with undermining US diplomacy, arguing Netanyahu faces weakening October reelection prospects and would lose immunity from corruption charges if ousted—giving him personal incentive to restart the war.
Why it matters: The reporting reveals that the US's nominal partner was simultaneously working to kill the people the US was trying to negotiate with, exposing a fundamental split in the alliance. Netanyahu's specific political exposure—October elections and pending corruption trial if he loses immunity, per Parsi—means any successful US-Iran deal directly threatens his survival, creating structural incentive to sabotage it.
