Incoming U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed his nominee for Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff to relay a “stark message” to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week: “Make the deal,” the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
Witkoff, who arrived in Israel from Qatar last Saturday to meet with the prime minister, told him “the president has been a great friend of Israel and now it’s time to be a friend back.”
“I would say that the president is exasperated,” Witkoff told reporters last week. Trump warned there would be “all hell to pay” if a deal was not reached.
According to a source familiar with the conversation who spoke to The Journal, Witkoff told Netanyahu that choices had to be made and Israel’s negotiators needed the authority to make decisions, adding, “If Netanyahu didn’t want to work that way, everyone should just pack their bags and go home.”

Netanyahu reportedly instructed the negotiating team—comprising the heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, an IDF representative and a political advisor—to travel to Qatar for intensive talks to finalize the deal.
Witkoff delivered the same message to Qatari and Egyptian mediators when he met with them a day earlier, saying, “The diplomatic back and forth must end.”

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