Deal With Iran Leaves Israel Greatly Concerned for Its Freedom To Act Defensively

TEL AVIV — Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet and leaders of the opposition are united in subtle but unmistakable anger at President Trump, who is portrayed as too eager to end the American-Iranian war without significant successes. While opening the Hormuz straits seems to top the White House agenda, Israelis have some urgent concerns. Topping those concerns are questions over Israel’s ability to prevent the reinstituting of the powers of Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah. Officials at Tehran claim the pact that ends the Iran war extends to Lebanon as well. They also claim that America will guarantee full Israeli withdrawal from all of Lebanon’s territory.“I think when people see this deal, we hope to release the text this week, they’re going to realize that this is going to make the whole region safer,” Vice President Vance told CNBC. A “new Middle East, certainly Israel, is going to have a seat at the table.”Israelis are almost uniformly unconvinced. The IDF currently holds a security belt inside Lebanon, which spans across the northern Israeli border. The army has evacuated most civilians from there in order to destroy Hezbollah installations in that area and beyond. As news emerged of a pact, evacuated Lebanese residents of that area started on their way home. Jerusalem, though, is pushing back against the notion that the IDF would withdraw from southern Lebanon. “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I are leading a clear policy,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “The IDF will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, without any time limit, to protect from there the border and Israeli communities against jihadist elements.”Northern Israelis are skeptical. Mr. Katz’s statement “is a bit too vague,” the founder of Alma Research, Sarit Zehavi, who lives near the border, told The New York Sun. “What, say, if troops see Hezbollah movement outside the immediate area of the security Zone? Can they strike at them? If Hezbollah terrorists attack them, would they be able to shoot back?”“There can be no agreement with a terror organization sworn to destroy us,” Ms. Zehavi said. Monday was the first time they had a bit of calm, “But we don’t want calm, we want peace.” Such questions have become pertinent following Mr. Trump’s statement that Israel’s strike on a building at Hezbollah’s stronghold at the Dahiyeh strict of Beirut “should not have happened.” Indicating that the Israeli Saturday strike, in retaliation to that day’s drone and artillery attack on northern Israel undermined a pending pact with Iran. Washington sources added that the strike forced Mr. Trump to make additional concessions to Iran.Mr. Trump said that Israel should not have struck the Lebanese capital, as the Hezbollah attack exacted no casualties. “Let Trump send his grandkids to a school at Shlomi then,” Ms. Zehavi said. One of the Hezbollah drones that prompted the Dahiyeh response, she said, landed right next to a school at that town, which is mere miles from the border. “This is what Iran always does,” she added. “Every time an agreement is about to be signed, Hezbollah is shooting at us, hoping to gain concessions when Israel retaliates.”There is an almost wall-to-wall consensus in Israel that the country cannot allow Hezbollah to rearm and reassert its power over Lebanon. Funds that would be released to Iran, they fear, would be redirected to rebuilding the Lebanese terror organization’s military capabilities that Israel has damaged considerably in the last two years. The opposition redirects the anger at Mr. Trump toward Mr. Netanyahu, claiming that the bad deal is a result of the premier giving up Israel’s independence to act. The bad deal about to be signed is “the sad result of a government that leads a war without strategic aims,” the politician who is currently ahead of all opposition leaders in the polls, former IDF chief of staff, Gadi Eisenkot, said. Some analysts, though, believe that the tiff between Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu could serve both of them politically. “Trump is showing that Bibi is not leading him by the nose, and by striking the Dahiyeh, Bibi can show he can act independently of Trump,” a former aide to Mr. Netanyahu, Mark Regev, told the Sun.

Deal With Iran Leaves Israel Greatly Concerned for Its Freedom To Act Defensively

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