US and Iran Near a Deal as Israel Braces for the Consequences

A Hebrew commentary says the emerging US-Iran understanding is being met in public with unusual calm, even though Jerusalem has voiced strong objections in private talks with Washington. The writer argues that the reason is partly political, because President Donald Trump is less susceptible than his predecessors to pressure from Benjamin Netanyahu, and partly because the deal’s details have not yet been published.

The article says both Trump and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have criticized media reporting on the talks, while a senior Trump administration official told reporters that once the terms are known, they will seem less severe than expected. Netanyahu’s late-night statement, it adds, barely addressed the current agreement and focused instead on a broader, future deal that is supposed to be discussed over the next 60 days.

The column places the current moment in the context of the past year, saying Israel has repeatedly pushed the United States toward military action against Iran. It says that effort gained momentum after Trump won the 2024 election, when Ron Dermer visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago with a picture of the countdown clock in Tehran’s Palestine Square, urging a green light for an attack. It also notes that today marks one year since Operation Rising Lion, the joint Israeli-American strikes on Iran.

The writer says Netanyahu favored a military option throughout the year and tried to convince Trump that the Iranians were only trying to buy time. But, the piece argues, force has limits, and the “40-day war” proved that. Israel entered the confrontation from a strong position after internal unrest in Iran and the gains of the June 2025 operation, yet the expected campaign to weaken the regime after the first 100 hours never began.

The article says the likely June 2026 deal would ease sanctions and oil-export restrictions, but unlike the 2015 Obama nuclear agreement, it will not free Israeli security agencies to shift resources away from Iran. Instead, the IDF, Mossad and other bodies will still have to prepare for continued offensive and defensive confrontation, at a cost of billions over years. The author concludes that this is not the end, and not even the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning.