Netanyahu Faces Political Reckoning as Trump Iran Deal Sidelined Israel
A Deal Struck Without Israel at the Table
A year and a day after Israeli fighter jets first opened fire above Iranian territory, setting off twelve months of intermittent fighting and collapsed negotiations, President Donald Trump announced that the United States had reached an agreement with Iran to end the war. The deal was brokered without Israeli participation, and a signing ceremony in Switzerland attended by Vice President JD Vance launched a sixty-day negotiation period to address Iran’s nuclear program and American sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
For Israelis across the political spectrum, the agreement landed as a body blow. Neither of the war goals Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laid out last June — removing what he called Iran’s “existential threats” to Israel and ending Tehran’s support for its regional proxies — were achieved. The deal was negotiated between Washington and Tehran with mediation from Qatar and Pakistan, and Israel had no seat at the table and no veto over its terms.
Trump Turns on Netanyahu in Blistering Public Rebuke
The rift between the two leaders spilled into public view after Israel struck Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood on the day the deal was announced, later claiming to have killed a senior Hezbollah commander. Trump told Axios he had conveyed his fury directly to Netanyahu, describing the Israeli leader as having “no f***ing judgement” and saying he was “so pissed off.” The language was unusually raw even by Trump’s standards, and it signaled how far the alliance had frayed.
Netanyahu pushed back against suggestions that he was being manipulated by Washington. In remarks reported on June 22, he rejected claims of mutual control between himself and Trump, emphasizing that Israel “stands for our own interests.” He pointed to continued military cooperation with the United States, particularly in countering Iranian threats, as evidence that the relationship remained functional even as the political fault lines deepened.
Political Enemies at Home Circle a Weakened Prime Minister
With Israeli elections approaching, Netanyahu, who has long billed himself as “Mr. Security,” now finds himself under attack from every direction. Former Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman called the deal “a catastrophe from Israel’s perspective,” a striking assessment from a figure who has himself advocated aggressive action against Iran. Prominent right-wing Israeli journalist Amit Segal posted an ominous quote from former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is worse.”
The criticism is not confined to the right. Opposition leaders have seized on the fact that Israel spent a year at war, endured missile barrages on its cities, and mobilized hundreds of thousands of reservists, only to watch Washington negotiate an end to the conflict on terms that left Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact and its proxy network in Lebanon still armed. The disconnect between the sacrifices demanded of Israeli society and the outcome delivered by its closest ally has created a credibility vacuum that Netanyahu’s opponents are rushing to fill.
Lebanon, Hormuz, and the Unfinished War
The agreement established a de-confliction cell for Lebanon, facilitated by Qatar and Pakistan, to ensure the end of military operations there. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described it as “the first real test” of whether the broader agreement can hold. But fighting between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah has continued despite a renewed ceasefire, and the mechanism for enforcing calm remains untested on the ground.
Mediators announced that the United States and Iran had also formed a line of communication to manage incidents in the Strait of Hormuz, raising hopes for stability at the oil trade chokepoint. Sanctions on Iranian oil were waived and some frozen assets were released as part of the arrangement, alongside what Araghchi described as “a major reconstruction and development plan for Iran.” For Israel, these concessions to Tehran are precisely the outcome the war was meant to prevent.
The Trump-Netanyahu relationship, once celebrated by both men as the closest in the history of US-Israel ties, has entered a phase neither anticipated. Trump publicly humiliated the Israeli prime minister at the moment of his greatest vulnerability, and the deal he struck with Iran fundamentally reorders the regional calculus that Netanyahu spent a decade constructing. Whether the Israeli leader can survive the political fallout at home, and whether the agreement itself can hold beyond its sixty-day window, are now the defining questions of a conflict that was supposed to end with a signature in Switzerland and instead opened a new chapter of uncertainty.