By: Fern Sidman

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to land in Washington for another high-stakes encounter with President Donald Trump, the diplomatic choreography unfolding between Jerusalem, Washington and Tehran is being overshadowed by a far more ominous calculation: time. According to Israeli intelligence assessments, Iran’s capacity to regenerate its ballistic missile arsenal, battered during the brief but consequential 12-day war earlier this year, is not merely theoretical but imminent. On Tuesday, World Israel News reported that Israeli officials now believe the Islamic Republic could restore much of its prewar missile strength within weeks or months, potentially placing between 1,800 and 2,000 ballistic missiles back into operational readiness if no countervailing measures are taken.

This stark warning, which Netanyahu intends to place squarely before the American president, frames his visit not as a routine diplomatic engagement but as a moment freighted with strategic consequence. The World Israel News report emphasized that, for Jerusalem, the missile question is not an ancillary concern to be discussed after nuclear enrichment levels or inspection regimes. It is, rather, central to Israel’s perception of existential vulnerability. In Netanyahu’s own words, spoken as he boarded his aircraft, the agenda of the visit may include Gaza and the broader regional upheavals, but “first and foremost” will be the negotiations with Iran and the principles Israel regards as indispensable to any agreement that purports to secure peace and stability in the Middle East.

The renewed diplomatic track between Washington and Tehran, initiated in Oman last week, has been described by both sides as cautious but constructive. Yet the World Israel News report noted that beneath the surface of diplomatic civility lies a profound divergence of purpose. Iranian officials have insisted that the talks remain confined to the nuclear file, a familiar posture that seeks to compartmentalize Tehran’s military ambitions and regional influence. The United States, by contrast, initially attempted to broaden the agenda to encompass ballistic missile development and, at least rhetorically, human rights concerns.

For Israel, such compartmentalization is illusory. The missile program, in Jerusalem’s view, is not merely a delivery system adjunct to a potential nuclear threat; it is itself a destabilizing force that reshapes the strategic landscape of the Middle East, empowering Iranian proxies and constraining Israel’s freedom of action.

The World Israel News report underscored that Netanyahu’s intelligence briefings to Trump will include updated assessments of Iran’s capacity to replenish and modernize its missile stockpiles. The concern is not only quantitative but qualitative. Even if Tehran’s arsenal were restored to prewar numbers, the evolution of missile accuracy, range and survivability would alter the calculus of deterrence and defense. Israeli planners fear a scenario in which Iran’s missiles, distributed across hardened and mobile platforms, would present an ever-present specter of saturation attacks against Israeli population centers and strategic infrastructure. The memory of previous conflicts, in which missile fire from proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas forced millions of Israelis into shelters, lends a visceral immediacy to these assessments.

The Washington meeting will be the seventh between Netanyahu and Trump since the beginning of the president’s second term, a testament to the unusually dense diplomatic traffic between the two leaders. World Israel News has often characterized their relationship as one of candid exchange, if not always seamless alignment.

In recent weeks, this closeness has been institutionalized through a flurry of high-level consultations. The Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, and the head of Military Intelligence, Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder, were hosted at the Pentagon last month, engaging in detailed discussions with their American counterparts.

Shortly thereafter, presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Jerusalem, where they conferred with Netanyahu and senior security officials. These meetings have sought to synchronize threat assessments and explore contingencies in the event that diplomacy falters.

Yet the synchronization is far from complete. A central tension lies in Israel’s insistence on preserving what it calls its “operational freedom” to act against Iran, even in the context of a negotiated agreement between Washington and Tehran. For Netanyahu, any accord that constrains Israel’s ability to respond militarily to perceived threats would be unacceptable.  Israeli officials fear a replay of earlier agreements in which international guarantees proved ephemeral and enforcement mechanisms inadequate. The memory of prior diplomatic frameworks, which in Jerusalem’s telling allowed Iran to advance critical capabilities under the cover of compliance, continues to shape Israeli skepticism.

This skepticism is sharpened by the geopolitical environment in which the talks are taking place. The 12-day war, though brief, exposed vulnerabilities on all sides and recalibrated regional perceptions of power. World Israel News has reported that Iranian leaders, chastened by the scale of American and allied military deployments in the Gulf, appear more circumspect in their public rhetoric. Yet Tehran’s insistence that missile development lies beyond the scope of negotiations suggests a determination to preserve the very instruments that Israel regards as most threatening. For Jerusalem, this bifurcation—conceding on enrichment levels while retaining missile capabilities—amounts to a strategic sleight of hand.

Netanyahu’s forthcoming presentation to Trump is thus likely to be framed not merely as an appeal for American pressure on Iran, but as a broader argument about the architecture of regional security. The World Israel News report described Israeli officials as increasingly concerned that the international community’s focus on the nuclear file risks obscuring the cumulative effect of Iran’s conventional and proxy capabilities. Ballistic missiles, in this view, are not a secondary issue but a linchpin of Iran’s deterrent posture and its capacity to project power across the Levant.

The American administration, for its part, faces a delicate balancing act. Trump has signaled an interest in a comprehensive agreement that addresses not only nuclear activities but also missile development. Yet he has also emphasized the importance of diplomatic momentum and the avoidance of precipitous escalation. U.S. officials are wary of being drawn into another protracted Middle Eastern conflict, even as they seek to prevent Iran from reconstituting the capabilities degraded during the recent fighting. The tension between restraint and resolve is palpable, and it will animate the conversations in Washington.

Beyond the immediate bilateral dynamic, Netanyahu’s visit carries symbolic weight for the broader region. Arab states, some of which have quietly expanded security cooperation with Israel in recent years, are watching the U.S.-Iran talks with a mixture of hope and apprehension. World Israel News has reported that these states share Israel’s concerns about Iran’s missile program, even if they are less inclined to voice them publicly. A deal that leaves Tehran’s missile capabilities intact could unsettle the fragile equilibrium that has emerged in parts of the Gulf and beyond.

The stakes, then, extend well beyond the negotiating table. For Israel, the prospect of Iran rapidly restoring a missile arsenal approaching 2,000 projectiles is not an abstract statistic but a scenario that demands urgent strategic planning. Israeli defense officials are already contemplating a range of contingencies, from enhanced missile defense deployments to preemptive options, should diplomacy fail to arrest Iran’s momentum. The very act of presenting these assessments to Trump is itself a form of strategic signaling, underscoring Jerusalem’s determination not to be lulled into complacency by the rhythms of negotiation.

In the coming days, as Netanyahu confers with the American president, the world will glimpse the outlines of a debate that has long simmered beneath the surface of U.S.-Israel relations: how to reconcile the imperatives of diplomacy with the unforgiving arithmetic of military capability. Whether the meeting in Washington yields a convergence of strategy or merely a clearer articulation of divergence remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that the missile clock is ticking, and for Israel, the cost of miscalculation is measured not in diplomatic embarrassment but in existential peril.