Issue 102: Deal With It
Israel may not like the US-Iran MOU, but it still needs to make the most of it
This week, New York Times journalists Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan published Regime Change, a detailed account of Trump’s second term that has already produced its share of surprising revelations.
Among them:
Trump reportedly told an aide in the early months of his administration that he didn’t want any part of a Netanyahu-led war against Iran. Months later, Netanyahu walked into the White House Situation Room and after making his case, Trump backed him.
In September 2025, with the Gaza deal hanging in the balance, Trump was on the phone with Netanyahu, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff, yelling: “Everybody’s sick of you, Bibi. Everybody hates you, and I’ve stood by you.”
These episodes echo a separate report in Axios of a tense exchange between Trump and Netanyahu over Israeli military activity in Lebanon: “You're f*cking crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. I'm saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”
This is the relationship Israel is depending on to shape the next phase of negotiations with Iran and the post-war future of the region.
I want to clarify something before proceeding. Israel’s frustration with this deal is legitimate, and its concerns are real. The US-Iran MOU folds Lebanon into a broader framework in ways that constrain Israel’s freedom of action against Hezbollah. Meanwhile, the US and Iran have yet to agree on basic measures (the two sides couldn’t even align on whether Tehran had committed to IAEA inspections the morning after the deal was announced). Trump’s statements appear to have moved Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for proxies off the table entirely. Israeli officials have made no secret of their fury at Qatar’s role in this process. Israel’s grievances are not invented.
However, voicing those criticisms publicly without providing solutions, is not a strategy.
Netanyahu campaigned hard for this war, and as the dust settles the results have been mixed. Khamenei is dead. Iran’s military is significantly degraded. Its nuclear program has been set back many years - potentially decades. These are meaningful achievements and deserve to be acknowledged. At the same time, Iran’s proxy network survives and can still fire missiles into Israeli territory, and it remains unclear how much lasting damage was done to its nuclear infrastructure. The regime, despite losing its supreme leader, is intact, and in some ways legitimized by its successful efforts in closing the Strait of Hormuz and bringing Trump to the negotiating table. And Israel’s regional and international standing has taken a serious blow.
As I mentioned in my previous newsletter, Netanyahu built his political identity on the concept that he alone could keep Washington and Jerusalem in strategic lockstep vis-a-vis Iran. For decades, diplomats described him as the “American whisperer.” That brand is now shattered. Rather than crafting American policy on Iran, he is being sidelined and publicly dressed down. He was reportedly caught off guard when the MOU was announced. Israeli officials claimed for days that they had not been allowed to review the final text.
Netanyahu appears to be boxed in on all sides: Trump seeks a deal to end the war without Israeli input, a tired Israeli public is frustrated by years of war that has yet to deliver “total victory,” and elections are fast approaching this Fall. He cannot openly oppose Trump without risking his biggest - and only - supporter on the global stage. He cannot embrace the deal without looking weak within his coalition. Netanyahu is trapped.
Netanyahu’s predicament doesn’t have to be Israel’s. The MOU has created a sixty-day window, but the remaining issues - nuclear enrichment levels, stockpiles, ballistic missiles, proxy financing - can still be negotiated. Israel needs to be in a position to influence those talks, but is prevented from doing so because its prime minister is prioritizing his own interests over the country’s.
There are several concrete steps Israel could take to change that:
Treat Lebanon as an opportunity, not as a burden. The Israeli army sits deep in Lebanese territory - leverage that depreciates quickly if it looks like indefinite military occupation. Former Israeli ambassador Michael Harari, writing in Al-Majalla in April, presented the logic clearly: Israel’s focus should be on reciprocal and achievable steps: increased Lebanese Armed Forces deployment alongside partial Israeli withdrawal, the beginning of reconstruction in southern villages as a signal of momentum, and the establishment of an international monitoring mechanism trusted by both sides. The European Union has offered to introduce a peacekeeping presence to replace that of the United Nations. The Trump administration has floated a Syrian security element. Israel’s goal should be a staged process that restores Lebanese sovereignty without making Beirut look like an Israeli proxy, while giving Israel residual capacity to respond to terror activity as a longer-term security architecture takes shape. As Harari notes, Israel should avoid preconditions it knows Lebanon cannot meet. Negotiations that collapse immediately serve no one.
Open a door for Damascus. Syria presents a similar opportunity, and a similar illustration of the same problem. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has repeatedly stated that Syria has no interest in a conflict with Israel. And yet, as noted by analysts, Israel’s military operations in Syria - including 2025 strikes in Damascus - are misaligned with its own stated political aims, agitating the Syrian public and undermining the very government it would need as a partner. As in Lebanon, Israel’s maximalist posture in Syria is less a coherent security strategy than a symptom of a government that cannot distinguish between tactical and strategic gains. Back-channel contacts are reportedly more active than the public picture suggests - but quiet diplomacy cannot survive indefinite military occupation.
Reframe its diplomatic dialogue with key partners. There are significant policy disagreements between Israel and its international partners, but none are as wide as those on Gaza and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel must demonstrate seriousness about a Palestinian political horizon in order to change the current conversation about its role in the region - which would translate into indirect benefits for its standing on Iran and other regional security issues.
On Gaza, the framework already exists. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza - a body of independent Palestinian technocrats, vetted by Israel, authorized by UN Security Council resolution - has been ready to operate since the start of the year. Israel has blocked its members from entering Gaza. A government serious about regional diplomacy would allow this mechanism, which it already approved, to actually function.
On the West Bank, the available gestures are more sensitive but equally obvious: curtail settler violence, reopen employment pathways in Israel for Palestinians, and demonstrate willingness to engage in confidence-building negotiations with the Palestinian Authority on water and resource access.
None of these steps constitutes a final-status agreement, but all of them require a government that doesn’t include the likes of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir who reject anything resembling pragmatism.
I firmly believe that the central problem here is not Israeli public opinion, which polling consistently shows is more pragmatic than its current government. The real obstacle is a prime minister who has burned bridges in the highest corridors of power in the world and whose coalition is ideologically married to rigid positions that are ill-suited to a region in dramatic and historic flux. For Israel to succeed in these changing conditions, it requires leadership that appreciates that for all things there is a season — and that its interests today are better served through pragmatism than through a leader whose most powerful ally has run out of patience.
Three pieces worth reading:
Ambassador Michael Harari has several pieces worth reading on Israel-Lebanon negotiations, available here, here, and here.
US Vice President JD Vance has emerged as one of the most consequential voices within the Trump administration in favor of a negotiated settlement to end the Iran war, and I highly recommend Sohrab Ahmari’s piece on the VP’s perspective for Unherd.
Finally, Iran expert Karim Sadjapour’s perspective is always worth listening to, including this recent interview on the Plain English podcast:
Thanks for taking the time to read. As always, I welcome your comments and questions.
Best,
Gabi
I don’t have the ‘inside knowledge’, as I am just a diaspora Jew, but I get the feeling that you’re being very ‘tongue in cheek’.