‘Bibi’s Bomb’: How Trump’s Iran Deal Outline Triggered a Political Crisis in Israel

‘Bibi’s Bomb’: How Trump’s Iran Deal Outline Triggered a Political Crisis in Israel

Three months after the United States and Israel launched a military campaign against Iran, the Tehran regime remains in power, and the terms of a prospective US–Iran deal are now generating fury, alarm, and a deepening sense of betrayal across Israel’s political establishment.

Donald Trump’s negotiating team is pursuing an agreement that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tankers — and the reported framework has drawn comparisons, unfavourable to Netanyahu, with the 2015 nuclear accord his government spent years trying to dismantle.

A War That Did Not Achieve Its Objectives

The US-led campaign — called Operation Epic Fury by Washington and Operation Roaring Lion by Jerusalem — was initially celebrated in Israel as the crowning achievement of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s diplomatic career. That assessment has since collapsed.

“The greater the fury, the greater the roar, the greater the defeat,” wrote Nahum Barnea in Yedioth Ahronoth, one of several prominent commentators to condemn both the emerging deal and Netanyahu’s conduct of the conflict. “Israel is completely beholden to the decisions of a capricious, hollow and desperate American president.”

Iran’s nuclear infrastructure was not destroyed. Its regional proxy network and ballistic missile arsenal — which caused casualties and destruction inside Israel during the conflict — do not appear to be addressed in the current negotiations. And the regime change Netanyahu had publicly promised has not materialised.

A Deal Potentially Weaker Than the One Netanyahu Rejected

The deal taking shape is widely assessed in Israel as less restrictive than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Obama-era agreement Netanyahu famously denounced before the US Congress in 2015.

“The emerging agreement is far worse than the previous one,” wrote Ben Caspit in Ma’ariv. He warned that the war’s aftermath could accelerate Iran’s nuclear programme rather than neutralise it. “If they do come to possess a nuclear bomb, it will be Bibi’s bomb.”

Caspit noted that the assassination of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — who reportedly restrained Iran from crossing the final threshold toward weaponisation — may paradoxically have removed a brake on the programme rather than its architect.

Israel Excluded From Negotiations

According to the New York Times, Israel has not only been excluded from the US–Iran talks but has not been briefed on their progress. Israeli officials have reportedly been forced to rely on regional allies and their intelligence networks to monitor developments.

This diplomatic isolation represents a significant blow to a country whose security doctrine has long depended on close coordination with Washington. US opinion polls suggest that bipartisan American support for Israel — a strategic asset built over decades — has suffered lasting damage as a result of the conflict.

Domestic Pressure Mounts on Netanyahu

Within Netanyahu’s own coalition, far-right members are now pushing for a direct confrontation with Trump over a partial ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, brokered under US pressure.

“It is time for the prime minister to bang on Trump’s table and inform him that we are returning to war in Lebanon,” wrote Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, on social media.

Public opinion data from the Israel Democracy Institute shows that immediately after the ceasefire, more than a third of Jewish Israelis expressed dissatisfaction with the outcome, compared with just over a quarter who were relieved the fighting had stopped. Support for the government declined as the conflict continued without delivering the promised results.

Even in April, with the conflict still ongoing, only around one third of Israelis rated the government’s handling of the war positively, the same survey found.

Few Champions for the Emerging Framework

Criticism of the deal’s terms has been near-universal in Israeli media, though some commentators have drawn a distinction between the deal itself and the decision to go to war.

“To Trump’s credit, it needs to be said that at least he tried,” wrote Ariel Kahana in the Hebrew-language daily Israel Hayom. “His bold willingness to unleash the United States’ tremendous firepower on Iran is tens of times preferable over the historic impotence shown by all of his predecessors.”

Kahana nonetheless acknowledged the strategic reality: “Iran can and is presenting to the world a victory picture by dint of the very fact that it is still standing. Trump, for the time being, does not have a similar counter-picture of his own to show. That isn’t very good news for the Israeli people.”