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<\/p>\nIsraelis reacted with alarm Monday to news that the United States, on its own, had secured an agreement ending the unprecedented joint military campaign both had launched in late February against the Islamic Republic of Iran.<\/p>\n
The concerns being expressed across the country were that the U.S.-Iran agreement not only completely sidelines Israel but also puts at risk its very security and the relationship with its vital ally, the U.S.<\/p>\n
From the political and security establishments to news commentaries and conversations at caf\u00e9s, there was a sense of dread that the war Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had marketed as a chance to quash Israel\u2019s archfoe with the help of a friendly American president is ending with none of its aims met.<\/p>\n
Why We Wrote This<\/p>\n
The U.S.-Iran ceasefire deal leaves many Israelis feeling vulnerable and abandoned by their most important ally. They expressed concern for Israel\u2019s security and freedom of action against its enemies. Some criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for failing to achieve his war aims.<\/p>\n
Even more jarringly, there\u2019s a sense that the end of the conflict is a disaster leaving Iran, not Israel, in the more dominant strategic position.<\/p>\n
Although details of the deal have not been disclosed, it reportedly does not include a demand for Iran to halt production of its ballistic missile arsenal, which it has deployed against Israel and Tehran\u2019s other regional adversaries. Nor does it address Iran\u2019s web of proxy armies around the Middle East, its “Axis of Resistance,” which it funded and built to attack Israel and which includes its most potent ally, Hezbollah, in Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Lebanon has been an active war front even in the weeks since a shaky ceasefire was signed in early April. Most disturbingly for Israelis in that regard is that the U.S.-Iran agreement could effectively tie Israel\u2019s hands in responding to Hezbollah\u2019s attacks on Israeli forces currently in southern Lebanon and in Israeli communities near the country\u2019s northern border with Lebanon.<\/p>\n
Nuclear threat<\/p>\n
The agreement also leaves open Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s long-proclaimed reason for seeking war with Iran in the first place: to remove its nuclear threat. Iran has threatened to \u201cwipe Israel off the map,\u201d despite repeated denials from Tehran that it was developing the capability to build a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Israeli soldiers patrol by the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, June 9, 2026.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe war threat may be over, but there is likely a diplomatic disaster facing us,\u201d Ohad Hemo, a Channel 12 journalist who covers the Arab world, told his followers on social media. \u201cThat\u2019s what happens when Netanyahu\u2019s entire foreign policy rests with one person [U.S. President Donald Trump] and there\u2019s been no investment in other ties, not in the Middle East, and not in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when the messiah turns on us, all of us, without exception, are in trouble,\u201d said Mr. Hemo, before concluding, \u201cIsrael has lost its ability to protect its borders.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israelis woke up Monday swimming with questions and anxiety about what will happen next with Iran and Hezbollah, and where they stand with the U.S., whose perceived abandonment of Israel in this deal arguably leaves the country weaker and more isolated than ever, both regionally and internationally.<\/p>\n
A day earlier President Trump, regarded by many Israelis as the \u201cbest friend\u201d Israel has ever had in the White House, reportedly chewed out Mr. Netanyahu in profanity-laced language for recklessly provoking Iran by ordering an attack on Hezbollah positions in Beirut.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the nuclear program, the jury is still out. There is fear here that in the 60-day negotiating period [provided for by the ceasefire deal], whatever tactical achievements were made in the recent war will be eroded and an agreement [on nuclear issues] could be pushed down the road. It\u2019s difficult not to think of this as a strategic failure,\u201d says Shira Efron, an analyst with the Israel Policy Forum, a Washington-based think tank.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a sense in Israel of disillusionment with its own leadership and with declarations of \u2018absolute victory,\u2019 when at best we are getting a mediocre agreement,\u201d she says, noting the caveat of not yet seeing the details of the agreement.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\t\t\tEvelyn Hockstein\/Reuters\/File\n<\/p>\n
U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confer at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on the day of Mr. Trump’s address, amid a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Oct. 13, 2025.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael\u2019s issues with Iran are far from solved. … The regime is now dominated by hard-liners with no different rhetoric on Israel and an [unresolved] nuclear situation. It\u2019s hard to imagine a good outcome,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Referring to the situations in both\u00a0Iran and Lebanon, she adds, \u201cThere is frustration because there were so many opportunities when Israel could have been in a stronger strategic position, but it isn\u2019t because of its continuous overreach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Upcoming elections<\/p>\n
The ceasefire agreement lands in the middle of Israel\u2019s election season. Mr. Netanyahu was already fighting for his political survival, trying to distance himself from the stain of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, Israel\u2019s greatest intelligence and military failure.<\/p>\n
For a while, it appeared to many Israelis that Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s government was succeeding in pulling off a security \u201ccomeback\u201d through its devastating attacks on Hezbollah in the fall of 2024 and a 12-day war with Iran last June.<\/p>\n
On Monday, trying to reassert Israel\u2019s security ethos of self-defense, government ministers claimed Israel would not be bound by the Iran deal.<\/p>\n
Yet opposition candidates immediately framed Mr. Netanyahu, who has dominated Israeli politics for decades, as a failure, the opposite of his self-proclaimed \u201cMr. Security\u201d persona.<\/p>\n
Yair Golan, a reserve general and head of the center-left Democrats party, posted on social media that Mr. Netanyahu had squandered Israel\u2019s deterrent power, leaving its enemies stronger and itself weaker.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a vote to elect Israel’s next state comptroller, at the Knesset in Jerusalem, June 3, 2026. <\/p>\n
He\u2019s the \u201cfather of Israel\u2019s greatest strategic failure in its history,\u201d Mr. Golan said. \u201cNetanyahu is good for Hamas. Netanyahu is good for Iran. Netanyahu is good for Hezbollah. Netanyahu is not good for Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Netanyahu sought Monday to defend his legacy. Describing his fight to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons as his \u201clife mission,\u201d he vowed it would never have them on his watch.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hear people asking, \u2018What have we achieved?\u2019 And I answer them, \u2018What have we achieved? We have removed the threat of immediate annihilation.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we had not acted as we did, Iran would already have atomic bombs. … The meaning is that millions of Israeli citizens, you who are listening to me now, all of you were in terrible danger of mass death.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also said Israel would remain in \u201cthe security zones as long as it takes to protect our country,\u201d referring to swaths of land inside the Gaza Strip, Lebanon, and Syria that the Israeli military seized after the Oct. 7 attack.<\/p>\n
Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s political future remains to be seen, but the U.S.-Iran deal signals the end of the \u201cpost-Oct. 7 wars,\u201d along with illusions of \u201ctotal victory,\u201d wrote Lazar Berman, diplomatic correspondent of The Times of Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael will continue to face threats from the same adversaries and will have to fight wars against them sometime in the future, whatever Trump or subsequent American presidents have to say.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israelis reacted with alarm Monday to news that the United States, on its own, had secured an agreement…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494609,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-494608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494608\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}