Katz Names Washington as the Reason Iran’s Refineries Are Still Standing, and Says It on Channel 14

Speaking Tuesday at Channel 14’s security conference, Israel Katz said: “We very much want to strike Iran’s energy targets, but the United States is not approving it at the moment because of concerns that Iran would attack neighboring countries and trigger a global oil crisis.” In the version carried by JNS and Matzav, he added: “We have struck Iran twice and are prepared to strike a third time on our own... The IDF has been instructed and is preparing accordingly to be capable of attacking Iran by itself,” and said Jerusalem would wait to see “what the United States does — whether it returns to the campaign or acts in other ways.” On American motives he was explicit: Washington “has interests in Iran that go beyond Israel’s specific concerns, including the Strait of Hormuz and global energy markets.” TASS carried a looser translation; the Israeli renderings are the ones to use.

The restraint Katz described has a subject. On Tuesday morning at 09:40, Jacob Magid reported for The Times of Israel that mediators believed a US–Iran breakthrough was near, with Iran and Oman having accepted a proposal to clarify Hormuz disagreements and revive a June memorandum of understanding — sourced entirely to unnamed mediators and unnamed sources, and to diplomats rather than governments. By Wednesday the same outlet’s liveblog headline read: “IRGC targets US forces in Jordan, as Iran rejects Omani plan to divide Hormuz between them.” In between, CENTCOM said it and the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces “conducted precision strikes in Iraq, July 28, against Iran-aligned terrorists” directed by the IRGC to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure, and said it had intercepted multiple Iranian missiles fired at a US base in Jordan.

Assessment: A defence minister does not disclose an American veto by accident, and he does not disclose it on Channel 14 by accident either. The audience is domestic: Israel is willing, Washington is the brake, and the Knesset vote is due by 27 October with a Channel 12 poll on 27 July putting Netanyahu and Gadi Eisenkot level at 38 percent each as preferred prime minister — a figure published without sample size or field dates. Note also what Katz concedes: the American interest he names is Hormuz and oil, not Iran’s programme. The tell is the reversal. Mediator optimism at breakfast and a rejection headline a day later is the signature of leverage being briefed, not diplomacy being reported.