Bibi: The Time Has Come

Bibi, the time has come.

From Boston lecture halls to the United Nations podium, you built your political career by denouncing bad Iran deals. You rightly warned that appeasement does not moderate terrorist regimes—it strengthens them. If you now quietly accept, sanitize, or soft-pedal this latest U.S.-Iran memorandum, you will not simply lose leverage. You will forfeit your political future.

Tying your political destiny to President Donald Trump was your gravest political miscalculation ever.

In recent days, Trump has cast himself as the one keeping you in line. He accused you of having “no f*cking judgment.” He said he was “pissed off” by Israeli operations in Lebanon. He treated Israeli military actions as an inconvenience to his diplomatic timetable. He even suggested leaving Iran’s enriched material in place. These are not isolated outbursts. They form a coherent pattern of public dominance and private pressure that demands Israel subordinate its security decisions to Washington’s political calendar—even as Israeli soldiers continue to die in southern Lebanon.

Vice President JD Vance has amplified that pressure with the familiar isolationist logic that dresses betrayal as realism. Like Trump, he also defended Iran’s ballistic missiles as “self-defense,” argued that Israel “can’t kill” its way out of every problem, and reminded you that two-thirds of Israel’s defensive arsenal was built by American hands and paid for by American taxpayers.

In short, the systems supplied to shield Israelis—and Americans in Israel and across the region—from Iranian missiles, Hezbollah rockets, and regional terrorism are now being used to coerce Israel into leaving Lebanon and accepting a deal that leaves Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure and ballistic-missile program dangerously unresolved. Trump’s largesse has become the instrument of coercion. The irony is not merely offensive; it is lethal.

Your old Philadelphia formula—courteous behind closed doors, combative before the cameras, transactional in policy yet personally loyal—belongs to an earlier Washington. It will fail now. Trump’s calculus lies elsewhere: Gulf money, commercial spectacle, cheaper oil, and a headline-ready “peace” he can parade before the upcoming midterm elections.

The State of Israel is not Lebanon, a country that France treats as a foreign ward. It is not Puerto Rico or Guam, subject to the constitutional will of the U.S. Congress. It is not an aircraft carrier, an oil-price hedge, or a prop for a White House signing ceremony. The Jewish state is a sovereign nation facing existential threats. When its survival demands independent action, Jerusalem must act—without apology and without permission.

As you weigh this, Trump is preparing to hand Iran a $345 billion package: unfrozen money from UAE and Qatari state funds plus a sweeping investment vehicle for Tehran. This is the same man who called North Korea’s dictator “Rocket Man,” crossed the Korean Peninsula’s dividing line, signed a ridiculous document with Pyongyang, and then forgot the problem.

Now, he seeks an Iranian sequel with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf—Tehran’s Delcy Rodríguez—a pliant regime insider he once hoped to cultivate before that gambit collapsed. Eager for a pre-election photo opportunity, he appears willing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz on Iranian and Omani terms. Bibi, this is coercion aimed at Israel, not an upper hand to the Islamist butchers.

Most Israelis already see the writing on the wall. Recent polling shows a majority view your leadership unfavorably and express little desire for you to run again. Your right-wing base, which has tolerated your endless judicial battles and prolonged war because you promised no second JCPOA, will not forgive acquiescence—especially while Hezbollah rockets and Iranian missiles still threaten northern and central Israel.

Political animals survive by reading power shifts early. The shift has already taken place, Bibi.

The State of Israel must stop behaving like a client state waiting for Washington’s permission slip. That means operational independence now. Accelerate indigenous manned-combat-aircraft programs beyond the current dominance of UAVs. Expand the overseas subsidiaries of IAI, Elbit, and Rafael so that production and sales occur in key markets while Israel itself consumes locally made Israeli systems.

At the same time, Jerusalem must convert the Abraham Accords into a genuine “Abrahamic NATO”—with Five Eyes-level intelligence sharing and joint planning. Foster the revival of the Periphery Doctrine southward and westward by deepening military, intelligence, and economic ties with Milei’s Argentina, Guatemala, Paraguay, Ecuador, and pragmatic actors in Venezuela’s orbit. These relationships are force multipliers against Iranian drug and terror networks in Latin America and beyond.

Even if this memorandum collapses and Washington once again finds itself forced into direct conflict with the regime, Israel cannot base its survival on another American cycle of pressure, escalation, diplomacy, and retreat.

History will not judge you by whether you preserved your standing with a transactional president who, on ‘X’, suggested that your political survival depends on his favor. It will judge whether, when Israel still had room to act, you chose strategic independence over personal political comfort. The cost of that choice may be real, but the cost of avoiding it will be far greater.

Bibi, open your eyes. The time has come.