In one day, US President Donald Trump threatened to strike Iran “with extreme force” and take control of Khark Island and vital oil facilities, then in the evening he returned to a different tone: negotiations are progressing, and the date for signing an agreement may be announced soon.
Between the threat and the retreat, Israel – according to analysts – was present in the calculations and absent from the decision, observing an American path that had no end to it, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was trying to come up with a narrative suitable to win over the Israeli interior for an unresolved war.
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This is not the reading of Netanyahu’s opponents alone. In Israeli articles and analyzes from various sects and trends, the Israeli Prime Minister appears stuck between a hesitant American ally, a steadfast Iranian opponent, a burning Lebanese front, and an electoral insider asking whether the heavy strikes have produced an actual result or just another round in a longer war.
First: A memorandum with conditions that Israel does not want
Lazar Berman, in The Times of Israel, believes that the potential memorandum of understanding does not entail a major Iranian concession, but rather extends the ceasefire for an additional two months, reopens the Strait of Hormuz, and gradually eases the American blockade, while postponing any decisive action on the nuclear program until a later agreement.
What is more dangerous – from the Israeli perspective – is that the understanding may also include Lebanon, thus restricting the Israeli army’s hand in confronting Hezbollah.
In this sense, there is a wide gap between the declared goals of the war and its outcome.
The opening of Hormuz, as Berman hints, is not an achievement if the strait was open before the war at all, and the resumption of nuclear negotiations in exchange for easing pressure is not a new opening, but rather a return to a path that Tehran was prepared for before the American-Israeli military campaign.
Therefore, the writer reads the memorandum as a formula that is completely consistent with Iran’s calculations, and not a victory for Washington or Tel Aviv.
According to Berman, Netanyahu is trying to raise expectations by recalling Trump’s pledge that the final agreement will include removing enriched materials, dismantling the enrichment infrastructure, restricting missiles, and stopping support for proxies.
However, the writer sees this as a bet that is not supported by the data, because Trump practically dropped – or at least marginalized – the demands of the missiles and proxies, and returned to a narrower goal: that Iran not possess a nuclear weapon.
Second: Trump is negotiating and Netanyahu is watching
Netanyahu’s relationship with Trump, as appears in these readings, is no longer a guaranteed political asset. Haaretz newspaper reports that Trump threatened Iran with a harsh blow, then returned the same evening to announce progress in the talks.
He also made it clear that the recent strikes were a purely American matter, and did not involve Israel in them, although Netanyahu was likely to welcome any request of this kind.
The newspaper adds that the American President stopped an additional Israeli attack, and that something has cracked in the close friendship between Trump and Netanyahu, contrary to the image that the Israeli Prime Minister is keen to market at home.
Trump even went so far as to publicly question whether the time for Netanyahu’s retirement had come, in a reference that Haaretz read as an additional sign of the rift in the relationship, whether intentional or within the context of the president’s usual improvisations.
For his part, writer Amit Segal captures the electoral impact of this rift in the newspaper Israel Hayom.
The campaign that could have culminated in a photo of Netanyahu side by side with Trump has become more complex, because the American president – as Segal writes – does not stop presenting himself as the decision-maker alone, and Netanyahu as a leader who moves within the ceiling set by the White House.
As for Berman, he believes that Netanyahu is no longer in the position of the closest partner to Washington in the Iran file, as Türkiye, Pakistan, and the Gulf states seem more present in shaping American calculations.
Thus, Trump turns, even partially, from an electoral lever into a political burden: a strong ally, but he negotiates an end that is inconsistent with Netanyahu’s needs.
Third: Uranium is a negotiating card
In the right-wing newspaper Israel Hayom, Amit Segal tries to defend Netanyahu and his decisions in the Iran war, but nevertheless acknowledges that Israel missed the “most valuable opportunity” of controlling enriched uranium.
The writer quotes two security officials, one former and one current, saying that Israel “should have pressed more forcefully.”
According to him, the operation was possible and on the planning table, but Israel carried out widespread and devastating strikes that did not achieve a “complete victory.”
Segal says that waiting for approval for this process prompted Israel to refrain from other steps that could have caused more harm to the nuclear program.
That is, Israel did not fail to read it because it was unable to bring down the Iranian regime from the air, but rather because it allowed the war to end without an irreversible nuclear achievement.
On the other hand, Jeffrey Kahn, writing in the Jerusalem Post, turns the question around. The problem, in his opinion, is not that the nuclear deal has not been resolved, but rather that Tel Aviv and Washington may have already exaggerated in reducing Iran to this file, which misled the public and decision-makers.
Tehran, even without a nuclear weapon, has a buried missile system, small boats capable of disabling tankers, a network of agents surrounding Israel, and an internal apparatus that guards the regime’s survival.
Fourth: Iran is not broken
Berman believes that the ceasefire was a “fatal mistake,” because it gave Iran a chance to breathe, and proved what he calls the Iranian victory theory: raising the economic cost to the Gulf and the United States leads to raising the political price on Trump until he stops the war.
He explains that Tehran is now betting on dragging the US President into election months during which resumption of fighting will become costly internally, especially if the Hormuz threat returns or affects the oil infrastructure in the Gulf.
This reading coincides with what a priest writes in the Jerusalem Post.
According to Kahn, Washington and Tel Aviv measured victory by “direct Western logic” – that is, conventional damage – from the navy to air defenses and nuclear facilities, but they overlooked that the Iranian center of gravity does not lie there alone.
Tehran still has no less effective pressure tools: buried missiles, a network of agents, and the ability to disrupt navigation and the global economy.
So the writer invokes a dark medical joke to describe such a victory: “The operation was successful, but the patient did not survive.”
As for Haaretz, it adds a field and political dimension to this: The new Iranian leadership, in its assessment, does not seem close to breaking, but rather more stringent and determined, while the Iranian role in directing Hezbollah’s policy is becoming increasingly clear as it is a direct arm of the Revolutionary Guard, as it describes it.
Fifth: Elections are approaching
All of these nodes come together in internal politics. According to Amit Segal in Israel Hayom, Netanyahu could, under other circumstances, run in the elections from the position of “the unrivaled man” in security and diplomacy, relying on his image alongside Trump and world leaders.
However, the waning enthusiasm of the American President to return to war, and the cracks in the image of the special relationship between them, made this card less shiny.
Hence, Segal expects the Likud Party to return to its oldest electoral weapon: intimidation about its opponents’ dependence on Arab parties.
Lazar Berman, writing in The Times of Israel, puts the impasse in more direct terms: Every week that passes makes it less likely that Israel will declare a clear victory in Gaza, Lebanon or Iran before the elections.
Its opponents, as he sees it, are restoring their positions under a ceasefire imposed by Trump, which does not lead to the disarmament of any of them.
Haaretz gives this crisis its darkest internal picture. The Israeli army is far from resolving the battle in Lebanon, and the coalition is busy protecting its men and political machine, while the residents of the north, and with them broader sectors of the interior, remain under the weight of warnings and the disruption of life.
From Oslo, Haaretz conveys a harsher European and Arab impression: Israel is no longer seen, as many of its residents themselves see, as only a threatened state, but rather a state brandishing the sword and rushing towards permanent war.
