The United States and Iran plan to sign a memorandum of understanding on Friday that would pause their war for now and put Donald Trump on the same side of a deal he once blew up. Under the planned agreement, Iran would open the Strait of Hormuz, agree not to develop nuclear weapons, and get the United States to end its blockade and sanctions while helping with reconstruction.
That is why the plan is landing like a shock in Israel, where critics are calling it a remarkable climbdown by the Trump Administration. A poll taken after the announcement found Trump’s approval rating in Israel had fallen twenty points to thirty-eight per cent, a sharp drop for a leader who was once celebrated there as the most hawkish American president on Iran in years.
The reaction is not coming from one corner of Israeli politics. American hawks and Israelis across the political spectrum are attacking the deal as more favorable to Iran than the 2015 nuclear deal Barack Obama negotiated, even though Trump tore that agreement up during his first term. Benjamin Netanyahu had encouraged Trump to start the conflict, only to face a deal that now looks, to his critics, closer to a reset than a victory.
Shimon Riklin, a pro-Netanyahu television anchor, said he was “Totally shook. Totally shook. Unacceptable. Amazing. Nobody understands this.” He called the plan “total surrender” and said Israel and America fought Iran to stop nuclear weapons and missiles that could reach Israel, Europe and the United States. He added that Iran had tried to encircle Israel with fire and enemies, and described it as “modern-day Germany, Nazi Germany.”
That criticism lands because the political logic of the war was supposed to be simple: after October 7th, Israel tried to regain deterrence and break the Axis of Resistance around it. Now Trump is being pressed from the other direction, with opponents arguing that a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program undercuts the very case used to justify war in the first place. Riklin said Trump gives Israel weapons and room to fight politically, but also said Trump told Israel to stop the war in Lebanon even as Hezbollah was firing and, in his words, Israel was not allowed to fire back.
The next step is the signing on Friday. What remains unanswered is how the agreement will be enforced if Iran later breaks its promise not to build nuclear weapons, and whether the climbdown that is being sold as an end to hostilities will hold once the first test comes.
