Israel’s ambassador tells Face the Nation he will push Iranian minorities to unify

Israel’s ambassador to Washington, Dr. Michael (Yechiel) Leiter, used a national television appearance to outline a public plan to encourage political mobilization inside Iran and to underscore close U.S.-Israel coordination on regional strategy. On CBS News’s Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan asked whether figures described in reporting as Iranian pragmatists had been intentionally targeted and whether Israel and the United States had agreed on a shared timeline for the war. The broadcast transcript shows Ambassador Leiter replying that Israel seeks "a united Iran" while working to "empower the minorities to have their say in the process, in the political process."

Leiter framed that effort in explicit, activist language: "What we're encouraging them to do is to coalesce, is to come together, to unify. If over the past 47 years the opposition of Iran would have unified, this regime would have come down a long time ago. So we can help them coalesce, we can help them unify, we can help them come together and rise up and say we're taking our country back." The transcript also records an ambiguous line from the ambassador about "He's talking about taking over- well that's coming down from the president- he's talking about taking over Saudi Arabia and Israel at the same time," a remark whose referent is not specified in the excerpt.

The Face the Nation transcript includes editorial omissions indicated by ellipses and a commercial break marker; the provided excerpt does not show whether Leiter directly answered the program's specific question about whether the pragmatists were intentionally targeted. The interviewer referenced reporting and White House comments in asking whether the pragmatists were expected to lead a poststrike Iran, and she asked, "Were they intentionally targeted by Israel or was this unintended?" The episode aired March 8, 2026, with a timestamp in the CBS transcript header of 12:52 PM EDT.

The television remarks track with official messaging posted by the Israeli embassy in Washington. In a formal release and biographical briefing, Ambassador Leiter praised Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and described what it called a renewed alignment with the Trump administration: "There is no doubt that a true friend of Israel and the Jewish people has returned to the White House. Together with the Trump administration, we will work to strengthen security and stability and to formulate an effective regional strategy against the Iranian threat." The embassy release also tied Leiter’s priorities to the war with Hamas, saying he carries "the pain of the families who lost their loved ones in the renewed War of Independence" and is determined "to defeat Hamas, bring our hostages home, and never allow Iran’s proxies to threaten our borders." The embassy lists Leiter as having assumed the Washington post on January 27, 2025, and traces a career that includes senior Israeli government positions.

The combination of public television remarks and an official embassy release signals a coordinated diplomatic posture that merges public diplomacy with operational messaging. Policy implications are immediate: Washington lawmakers, U.S. regional partners, and civic constituencies in both countries will use the ambassador’s words to assess whether Israeli strategy now includes active support for internal Iranian actors, and whether the United States is being privately or publicly enlisted in that effort. Those questions intersect with oversight responsibilities in Congress and with broader public debates over the limits of statecraft and the risks of promoting regime change.

Clarifying the omitted portions of the Face the Nation exchange and the referent of the ambassador’s "he" would be essential to fully understand operational intent; the unabridged broadcast or full transcript should be reviewed to resolve those gaps.