US President Donald Trump reportedly rejected a proposal last week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to jointly call on the Iranian public to take to the streets and topple the regime during the war against Iran, with the president fearing the protesters would be slaughtered.

Netanyahu ended up issuing the call by himself, but the reported conversation points to persisting differences between Israel and the US over the extent to which regime change is a goal of the war with Iran.

The report, which appeared on Channel 12 and Axios, cited senior American officials and an Israeli source familiar with the details. The discussion reportedly took place hours after Israel assassinated top Iranian officials Ali Larijani, the former secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, and Gholamreza Soleimani, former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Basij Force.

The Basij took a central role in repressing the mass anti-regime protests earlier this year. According to activist groups, thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, were killed in the crackdown.

Netanyahu is said to have told Trump after the assassinations that the Iranian regime was in chaos, and that the time had come to further destabilize it by issuing the joint call.

Trump, however, reportedly expressed concern that such a call could lead to mass bloodshed as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would likely suppress the protesters as regime forces had in........

© The Times of Israel