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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced a raucous backlash from both opponents and allies on Monday, after US President Donald Trump announced a deal with Iran that many in Israel view as a capitulation.
Trump hailed the agreement to extend the ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz — to be signed on Friday in Switzerland after weeks of fractious negotiations and intermittent outbreaks of fighting — as a “Great Deal” that would “bring Peace and Security to the whole Region”.
But in Israel the news was met with a mix of anger and frustration across the political spectrum that the US president had again forced the country into a humiliating truce before it had achieved any of its war goals.
In a further blow — hours after Israel incurred Trump’s wrath by launching a strike on Hizbollah in Beirut — the deal also called for it to halt its campaign against the Tehran-backed militant group in Lebanon. Netanyahu and his allies have repeatedly sought to delink the fight with Hizbollah from the Iran war.
“[Trump] compelled Israel to accept an inconvenient ceasefire in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran,” the commentator Nahum Barnea wrote in the centrist daily Yedioth Ahronoth. “Along the way, he demoted Israel from the status of an ally to that of a servant: one whose services are utilised but whose opinion is disregarded. Its role is to obey and to say thank you politely.”
When Trump and Netanyahu launched their joint campaign against Iran in February, Netanyahu told Israelis the war would bring “true peace”, remove the threat posed by Iran’s missile and nuclear programmes and help topple the Iranian regime.
But as Trump announced the ceasefire extension on Sunday night, Netanyahu’s domestic opponents excoriated the Israeli prime minister for the fact that none of those goals had been reached.
Yair Lapid, head of the centrist Yesh Atid party, branded the agreement “one of the most shocking failures of Israel’s foreign and security policy”.
“[Netanyahu] continues to tell everyone: “We changed the Middle East.” The problem is that due to negligence, arrogance, the absence of a suitable professional team, and judgment influenced by other things — he changed it for the worse,” Lapid wrote on X.
The head of the leftwing Democrats, Yair Golan, said: “In one signature stroke, immense military achievements secured with the courage of our pilots and the blood of our fighters have been erased, while Netanyahu stood on the sidelines.”
“Netanyahu is good for Hamas. Netanyahu is good for Iran. Netanyahu is good for Hizbollah. Netanyahu is not good for Israel,” he wrote on X.
As of Monday afternoon, amid mounting public criticism of the implications for Israel, Netanyahu had not given any public response to Trump’s deal.
But other members of his far-right government reacted with defiance. Defence minister Israel Katz insisted that, despite the truce, Israel would not withdraw from the territory it has seized in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, but would instead remain there “indefinitely”.
“The area will be cleared of local residents, and all terror infrastructure, above and below ground — including the homes in the contact-line villages that served as terror outposts — will be destroyed,” he said. “The seizure of territory and the security zones are among the [Israel military]’s greatest achievements in the [war].”
Meanwhile, national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir urged Netanyahu not to let Trump’s deal bind Israel “in any way”.
“We love the USA and are grateful to President Trump. And yet, the State of Israel is not a banana republic,” he wrote on X. “I say these things to the Prime Minister all the time.”
However, others were scornful of the idea that an increasingly isolated Israel could afford to defy Trump in a significant way. “Israel’s attacks in [Beirut] are unrelated to Hizbollah. It attacks because it is important for Netanyahu to show his voters that he doesn’t obey Trump’s every command,” wrote Barnea.
“He is a servant playing at rebellion. This rebellion won’t go very far. Trump is all we have left in America after three years of war. It is unwise to push him into the Iranians’ arms.”
Source:
www.ft.com
