The Israeli press no longer reads the tension between Washington and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu as a passing disagreement over Lebanon or Iran, but as a moment of strategic exposure, as Trump is no longer the guaranteed ally, and Netanyahu is no longer able to turn the personal relationship with him into an electoral and security insurance policy.
And in all the Hebrew articles, from Haaretz to Israel Hayom and Maariv and Channel 12, one idea is repeated: Israel won military rounds, but lost its political margin before Washington.
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Amos Yadlin, former head of the Military Intelligence Division, and Udi Aventhal, an expert in strategic planning, on Channel 12 believe that the US-Iranian agreement represents a “terrible strategic failure,” because “Israel was excluded by Trump from the negotiations and did not influence their results.”
As for Yoav Limor, a military analyst at Israel Hayom, he believes that the war will be remembered as a war in which “the victorious party lost militarily and strategically,” because Israel emerged “weaker and more restricted,” while Iran succeeded in linking Hezbollah and Lebanon to its cause.
Nadav Eyal, a writer and analyst for Yedioth Ahronoth, formulated the issue from an American angle, saying, “Trump is America’s leader. His duty is to serve its interests.”
Washington is no longer moving according to Israeli desire, but rather according to its calculations, to end the war and open a path with Tehran, and this is what made the agreement, in the eyes of a large part of the Hebrew media, the beginning of a transformation, not the end of a crisis.
Lebanon the trap
For his part, Amos Harel, a military analyst at Haaretz, wrote that Trump fears that “Israel will obstruct his plans by escalating the conflict in Lebanon,” and that Vance’s message to Tel Aviv is “to remain silent and accept the consequences, because its dependence on the United States is almost complete.”
In Israel Hayom, Danny Zaken and Sherit Avitan Cohen reported that Iran “will launch attacks to create a crisis and deepen the dispute between Israel and Washington,” and that Israel’s ability to act in Lebanon is “limited due to the American demand.”
As for Anna Barsky, she wrote in “Maariv” that Washington is exercising “intense pressure” at the Israeli political level so that Israel does not respond to Hezbollah’s attacks, or is satisfied with a limited and controlled response, but the importance of this pressure does not lie in the diplomatic position alone, but rather in its direct military background. Washington does not speak only as an external mediator, but as a party that controls a large part of Israel’s ability to continue the war, from precision munitions to air defense systems.
Yaron Abraham revealed on Channel 12 that Ron Dermer tried to calm the ministers so that Israel would not be accused of sabotaging the agreement with Iran, while ministers expressed their anger by saying that Vance “will not attend the funerals of the four dead.”
A divided right
As for the right itself, there is no single reading, as Eyal Ofer in Maariv attacked Vance and accused him of justifying the agreement with Iran, but he called on Israel to set red lines instead of abandoning the arena to Ben Gvir’s statements.
As for Amnon Lord in Israel Hayom, he presented a more pragmatic formulation, which is that the problem is “how to continue fighting Hezbollah without entering into a destructive confrontation with the American administration.” Therefore, he criticized “the calls to burn Lebanon,” considering that they serve politics, not the army. He wrote that “the Dahiyya doctrine and Lebanon’s return to the Stone Age” have become “delusions obsessed with setting fires.”
On the other hand, Nadav Sharagai in Israel Hayom saw that Trump was returning Israel to the “calm versus calm” equation, which mixed “calm with security,” so he called for Netanyahu to remain a “very difficult person” even if that led him to a confrontation with the White House.
Other articles present Trump not as an angry mediator, but rather as a political blackmailer. Amit Segal wrote in Israel Hayom that “80% of the talks with Washington revolve around the conflict over Hezbollah,” and that Trump has not forgiven Netanyahu for congratulating Biden in 2020.
On Channel 12, Trump appeared hinting that his support for Netanyahu “may be the deciding factor,” while considering alternatives such as Naftali Bennett and Gadi Eisenkot.
Yossi Verter, a political analyst at Haaretz, wrote on June 19 that Netanyahu had expected Trump to be his trump card, but he now “wake up every morning terrified of his daily dose of humiliation.”
As for Ben Caspit, he wrote in Maariv that Trump is implicitly telling Netanyahu: “You are in my hands,” describing that as a “blatant, clear, loud threat” that makes Netanyahu “the most pressured and blackmailed prime minister in history.”
Netanyahu is the accused
The press does not absolve Netanyahu of responsibility. Ronen Bergman, an investigative journalist for Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote that Netanyahu “takes a real danger, inflates it to catastrophic proportions,” and then claims to have saved Israel from it.
Bergman reinforces this idea by saying that “the victory speech does not replace the removal of enriched materials,” thus challenging the narrative of achievement that Netanyahu tried to market after the war.
As for Ben Caspit, he saw in “Maariv” that the “original sin” was Netanyahu pushing Trump to withdraw from the nuclear agreement in 2018. He does not treat this step as a tactical mistake in the past, but rather as part of the internal state of Netanyahu himself. He sees him as a leader who confuses his personal survival with the image of the “master of security,” and turns major strategic decisions into tools in the battle for political and judicial survival.
As for Gideon Levy, the left-wing opinion writer in Haaretz, he said that “the key to any change” towards Israel is in Washington, and that the next stage may mean “no more generous, unconditional aid, but conditions on every dollar and every missile.”
Yossi Verter’s reading does not stop at personal humiliation, but rather links it to the erosion of Israel’s international standing, as he believes that what Trump says is “circulating in the Gulf, Europe, and the neighborhood,” and thus the crisis becomes three-fold: American pressure, government confusion, and the erosion of public confidence.
In conclusion, the Israeli press reveals that Netanyahu lost his monopoly on the relationship with Trump, after the ally became a source of pressure and blackmail.
The agreement with Iran restricted Israel in Lebanon, and opened an internal debate about the limits of power and the rhetoric of “burning Lebanon.”
The most dangerous thing, according to the Hebrew press, is that Washington may move from supporting Israel unconditionally to linking every dollar and missile with an escalating, dangerous, and open political, security, and electoral price.
