Israeli officials are considering the possibility of conducting a military strike on Iran, with or without the approval of the United States, believing that US President Donald Trump could elect to not stand in the way like his predecessor Barack Obama did, The New York Times reports in an exposé that reveals many details on the Israel-US relationship over the past decade.

Jerusalem has been actively pushing and preparing for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities for many years, and in 2012 came extremely close to giving the Israel Defense Forces a green light to carry that out, the report says.

The report quotes dozens of current and former senior officials to describe how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened the Obama administration that he would carry out the strike, in what some said had pushed the US president to expedite negotiations with Tehran that eventually yielded the 2015 nuclear deal loathed by Netanyahu.

According to the report, the Obama administration sent an official to Israel every several weeks to to “Bibisit” the Israeli leader and make sure he did not launch a strike on the Islamic Republic.