Israel was sidelined from the United States-Iran negotiations and the terms of its June 14 memorandum of understanding. Israelis on both the left and right are furious.

Members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government lambasted the deal. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on June 15: “The agreement with Iran is bad for Israel and the entire free world, period.” Defense Minister Israel Katz said the Israel Defense Forces (idf) would defy the deal’s requirements to end the war with Hezbollah and would stay in Lebanon “indefinitely.” Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the war’s conclusion was “a terrible failure.”

Israel’s media is also largely against the deal. Amit Segal, a journalist close to the prime minister, posted a quote to X attributed to Henry Kissinger: “It may be dangerous to be America’s enemy, but to be America’s friend is fatal.” Prominent anti-Netanyahu journalist Ben Caspit claimed that the apparent terms of the U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations make the 2016 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action implemented by President Barack Obama “perfect in comparison.” A June 16 Jerusalem Post report claims: “The vast majority of idf and Mossad top brass oppose the emerging Iran nuclear deal as insufficient in light of the power dynamics between the parties, the ‘blood and treasure’ invested and the threats confronting Israel. … It is nearly unanimous, and senior officers and officials are making their views heard in private forums ….”

The United States and the State of Israel share a heritage tracing back to the kingdom of Israel. Isaiah 9:21, Zechariah 11:14 and other biblical passages prophesy that the brotherhood between the U.S. and Israel will be broken. The two countries entered the Iran war as allies, but the war’s fallout will likely drive them apart