15.6.2026
Israelis from across the political spectrum reacted angrily Monday to the news of an initial deal between the U.S. and Iran, calling it a disaster for Israel and directing their fury at one man: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Israeli leader said at a news conference Monday that “with an agreement, without an agreement,” he would continue fighting to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, which Tehran has long maintained it isn’t trying to do, saying its nuclear program is for civilian purposes.
“As long as I am the prime minister of Israel, it will not happen,” Netanyahu said.
But other Israeli government officials, rivals, politicians and commentators were quick to criticize the preliminary deal between the U.S. and Iran, marking a sort of informal referendum on the premier’s tenure ahead of elections this fall and underscoring his deepening isolation at home, in the region and, increasingly, from the United States.
Critics say Netanyahu led President Donald Trump into the war with Iran while overpromising what it could achieve, and Trump now might be dragging Israel out of the conflict before it feels ready. They say the prime minister misjudged Trump’s appetite for a protracted conflict, was outflanked by Iran in negotiations and grew increasingly sidelined by the region’s other major players.
“Israel is paying the price of Netanyahu’s hubris and blindness, and the price of the manipulations that he tried to pull on Trump,” former Prime Minister and Netanyahu rival Ehud Barak said in an interview with Israel’s public broadcaster Monday. “Iran emerged stronger; Israel emerged weaker. That is Netanyahu’s strategic responsibility. He failed.”
Yair Lapid, who will challenge Netanyahu in the upcoming elections, wrote Sunday that the deal, which would extend the tenuous ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran and lead to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, was shaping up to be “one of the most shocking failures in Israel’s foreign and security policy … entirely registered in Netanyahu’s name.”
“It can be fixed, it must be fixed,” he wrote. “Netanyahu can no longer fix it, we will do it.” AP reports