The depth of the disagreement between Israel and the Obama administration over the deal reached with Iran is about profoundly policy and not about politics, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not looking to back down from his criticism of the deal and “very clear and unambiguous position,” a senior Israeli official told American leaders and activists on Tuesday.

“Friends can quarrel about policy and it can be a bitter argument, but at the end of the day it serves the interest of the international community that Israel should retain her freedom of action under these circumstances,” Dr. Eran Lerman, deputy director of the National Security Council for foreign policy and international affairs in the Prime minister’s office, told the group of Jewish leaders and activists in a conference call hosted by the American friends of Likud. “And therefore, our refusal to accept or abide by the terms of the Geneva agreement is not to the decrement, it’s actually beneficial to all those in the international community who profess to be committed in denying Iran a military nuclear capability. It was and remains important for Israel to take that position so that we are not bound by that agreement and we are not bound by the commitments undertaken by the P5+1.”

Dr. Lerman addressed the world’s frustration in welcoming Rouhani’s charm offensive and the openness Foreign minister Zarif presented during the negotiations, but at the end of the day it is the Supreme leader and the Ayatollah Islamic council that is running Iran. He acknowledged, “Israel may have mistakenly done damage for itself by fixing on Ahmadinejad for so long, because in the end of the day he was a marginal figure. And while it was very tempting to focus on Ahmadinejad, the story is about Khamenei.”

Lerman did not directly point at any time frame Israel would be forced to act alone in striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, if the diplomatic path turns out to become a catastrophic failure. “Our right to retain freedom of action – I think we have shown it in small portions over the past few years – is not an empty slogan,” he said. “The right of Israel to defend herself by herself has been quite extensively discussed and recognized by the American administration.”

But he insisted that Israel cannot rule out military action despite the international pressure. “We are not trigger heads, we know very well what the cost of military action would be. We are not a bunch of hot heads,” he said. “The purpose of our position is to get a diplomatic solution that works. Therefore, our considerations about military action will flow entirely around one question: Whether or not the Iranians are taking steps that leave us no other choice.”