Newspaper: The agreement with Iran raises anger in Israel and distancing itself from Washington news

The Financial Times said that the interim agreement concluded by the United States with Iran was met with anger in Israel, where critics considered it to reflect a “major strategic failure,” at a time when Washington responded to the criticism, as US Vice President J.D. Vance called on Israel to “wake up and face reality.”

The newspaper quoted Dan Shapiro, the former US ambassador to Israel, as saying that US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “overestimated their capabilities, misjudged what could be achieved, and wasted the best strategic position available to them.”

Shapiro added that Trump demonstrated, by agreeing to conclude an agreement with Iran, his desire to “step back and play a lesser role in the Middle East,” considering that any future American president would be less willing to embark on a similar military adventure.

The report indicated that the memorandum of understanding signed by Washington and Tehran did not include any reference to Iran’s ballistic missile program or its support for armed factions in the region, despite continued Israeli demands to include these two files in any agreement.

The newspaper quoted an unnamed former senior Israeli official as saying, “The nuclear file was dealt with only with words,” without clear Iranian commitments to give up its stock of highly enriched uranium.

The official added that the agreement represents a “strategic disaster,” noting that “the situation today is worse than it was before the war, especially since Israel is no longer moving in full coordination with the United States as was the case previously.”

According to the report, the agreement may allow Iran to obtain US exemptions that allow it to sell oil and access its frozen assets, while the Iranian regime remains in power.

The newspaper said that Washington also sought to impose a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, which raised objections within Israel, while Netanyahu continues to assert that his forces will not withdraw from the “security zone” that it declared inside southern Lebanon.

In a related context, the newspaper quoted Shapiro as saying that Trump and Netanyahu bet that the protests that Iran witnessed after the first war last year would lead to the fall of the regime, adding, “They believed that the regime was on the verge of collapse, and that it only needed a simple push to bring it down.”

But the newspaper pointed out that this bet did not succeed, as Iran emerged from the war believing that the confrontation had strengthened its position, despite the heavy losses it had incurred.

It also quoted Nadav Strauchler, Netanyahu’s former political advisor, as saying that the agreement with Iran “is not a small blow to Netanyahu,” adding, “If the elections were held tomorrow, he would be in big trouble.”

The newspaper pointed out that opinion polls show the decline of the Likud Party and its right-wing allies in front of the opposition, without a clear path that could give them a new parliamentary majority.

Shapiro concluded by saying that the most prominent lesson of this war is that “in the post-October 7 world, there is no such thing as finishing the job.”