Yair Golan Says Netanyahu Made a New Iran Deal Worse for Israel

Yair Golan, chairman of the Democrats and a reserve major general, sharply criticized the emerging U.S.-Iran agreement in an interview Sunday afternoon on Kan News radio’s “BeHalf HaYom.” He said Israel is being left without influence on what he called the most important issue for its security, Iran’s nuclear program, and argued that the deal does not go in the direction Israel wanted.

Golan said Israelis may end up with terms “much worse” than the previous nuclear agreement. He asked how Benjamin Netanyahu, after opposing the earlier deal and helping persuade Donald Trump to withdraw from it, had brought Israel to a point where the outcome could be worse for Israel. He also accused Netanyahu of failing to turn IDF achievements on other fronts into political gains.

Golan said Hamas is recovering, Hezbollah, which Netanyahu had said was destroyed for generations, is threatening northern communities, and that life there is effectively impossible. He said Israel is moving toward a more difficult situation with Iran than it faced a decade ago. In his view, the government has suffered a strategic failure because it lacks a diplomatic track, and he said Israel has become a “pariah state” that others do not talk to or consult.

The Democrats leader also said there was no need to launch Operation “Shagat HaAri,” calling it an operation whose goals were unrealistic from the start and describing it as a major strategic failure. He accused Netanyahu and his government of acting for political reasons, saying they dragged out the war in Gaza and entered the northern campaign too late. Looking ahead to elections, Golan said the anti-Netanyahu bloc would likely be led by Naftali Bennett or Gadi Eisenkot. He added that the party has set up a legal headquarters to address what he called the immediate needs of the public, with leading lawyers involved, and that it will operate continuously as elections approach.