A real blow to Israel

Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the better part of a year trying to rebuild his image as Israel's indispensable protector. That effort has just suffered its most serious blow yet.

The killings of Hassan Nasrallah and Iran's supreme leader were celebrated in Israel as decisive victories and proof that Netanyahu had finally delivered the security his country had been promised since October 7. But months later, both Hezbollah and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are still standing, still armed, and still capable of striking Israeli territory. The promise of obliteration went unfulfilled, and that failure now sits at the center of Netanyahu's political crisis.

It's a failure layered on top of others. Corruption charges that have trailed Netanyahu for years, combined with the lack of accountability over the security failures of October 7, 2023, had already eroded his standing. Now 76, Netanyahu has announced he intends to run for re-election in October — making the timing of the Iran deal's fallout especially dangerous for him. The Iran deal is the embodiment of Netanyahu’s failures, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time for him. 

A deal Netanyahu can't afford

Netanyahu's keeness to disrupt the agreement shows most clearly in the malicious conduct of his government in Lebanon, where strikes have continued even after the U.S. and Iran signed their memorandum of understanding. Israel's invasion there — including the complete destruction of entire villages and neighborhoods resulting in an unfathomable humanitarian crisis — has compounded the reputational cost that was already mounting from the genocide in Gaza and the continued illegal expansion of settlements in the West Bank. Expansion serious enough that the EU has moved to sanction organizations involved in it. 

Netanyahu and Donald Trump are, in a sense, trapped by mirror-image problems. Netanyahu needs the war in Iran and Lebanon to continue in order to hold his coalition and his political survival together. Trump, watching his approval ratings sink ahead of the midterms, needs the opposite: an end to the war, a reopened Strait of Hormuz, and relief on inflation. The Iran deal serves Trump's interests precisely by undermining Netanyahu's.

Openly calling for war and destruction  

That tension boiled over on the ground. After four Israeli soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir declared on X that "all of Lebanon must burn," adding, "For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers should cry." Iran's foreign minister responded by calling the Israeli leadership "a threat to all of humanity." British Foreign Secretary repsonded by sanctioning Ben-Gavir and stating that the use of such language is “horrendous and abhorrent”. 

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich shares similar murderous intents, calling for Israel to "open the gates of hell" in Lebanon — language already used about Gaza back in March 2025. Defense Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, made clear that the displacement caused by Israel's invasion would be permanent: "The 200,000 residents living in the security zone will not return," he said. "None of them will return.”

These statements are proof of how catastrophic the Iran deal is for Netanyahu's government, and how much of a failure the war has been.

Israel's own military analysts Haaretz's Amos Harel ranked the outcome of the Iran ceasefire among Netanyahu's worst failures, second only to October 7 itself: "An ending like this to the Iranian saga — with no regime change, no end to Iran's nuclear and missile programs, and clear damage to the Israeli-American special relationship — reveals the extent of the destruction Netanyahu has wreaked on Israel's global standing since 2023."

For context, when the U.S. signed the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran under Barack Obama, Israel still commanded a deep bench of international allies it could lean on to protect its security interests. That goodwill has eroded. After the killing of tens of thousands in Gaza, restricting humanitarian aid, and leaving the Strip in ruins, Israel is now more isolated diplomatically than at any point in decades. When the new ceasefire with Iran was announced, the international community almost unanimously welcomed it and virtually none raised concerns about Israel's security being shortchanged.

Trump's shifting story

Trump, for his part, has visibly struggled with how to characterize his own role in the war. For months he pushed back hard against reporting, including an April New York Times account, describing how Netanyahu had maneuvered him into the conflict. "Israel never talked me into the war with Iran," he posted on Truth Social. "I watch and read the FAKE NEWS Pundits and Polls in total disbelief."

But as the war dragged on without delivering the swift results he'd expected, his tone shifted toward detachment. "I don't care" if peace talks fell apart, he told CNBC earlier this month. At the G7 summit in France, he said he hoped to put the war "in the rearview mirror" and turned his criticism toward Netanyahu directly, saying he "has to be more responsible" about the conflict with Hezbollah, attacks that have killed more than 4,100 people in Lebanon since the recent escalation in March. Trump also couldn't resist a reminder of where the leverage in the relationship sits: "Without me, there would be no Israel."

Is that it for Netanyahu? 

What emerges from these past two weeks is not simply a diplomatic dispute over the terms of a ceasefire, but a portrait of a government that just shot itself in the foot. 

For years, Netanyahu sold the war as a path to total victory via Hezbollah’s dismantling, Iran's nuclear program gone, and a region reshaped by Israel. What the outcome has been instead is further insecurity, an American president eager to move on, and a cabinet so unwilling to accept the outcome that its own ministers are calling for Lebanon to burn rather than admit the war achieved less than expected. Whether voters punish him for it, or whether the far right's escalating rhetoric manages to drown out the reckoning entirely, will determine not just Netanyahu's fate, but how much further Israel's isolation deepens in the meantime.

At the time of this writing, negotiations are still under way with many obstacles to overcome. Regardless as to whether a deal is finalized or not, the survival of the Iranian regime and its ability to negotiate with Washington will continue to be a hurdle for Netanyahu’s political survival.