The Blogs: In order to obtain a negotiated peace with Iran, Israel needs to get tough.

Netanyahu, Trump, and Jared Kushner. Photo credit: The White House.

It is time that Israel faces that the present negotiations between Trump and Iran are getting nowhere. Trump’s approach has been to set a deadline, declare that if Iran does not meet it, there will be dire consequences, and if Iran does not meet it, extend the deadline. By now Iran must have concluded that it must not treat Trump’s threats seriously. Something has to change and Israel has to change it.

After reaching this conclusion, I realized that since I had decades of participating in mediations in the United States, perhaps I could think of a way to resolve this controversy. Below is my suggestion.

I begin in 2008, when Obama was elected President. As Obama admits in his second biography, when he and Netanyahu first discussed the threat to Israel’s peace, they talked about negotiations with Iran and talks with the Palestinian Authority. The two men had different views about Iran, though they agreed that Iran should never be allowed to have nuclear weapons. When they spoke about peace with Palestinians, on which Obama wanted to focus, Netanyahu remained noncommittal.

For the next eight years, because of their differences, the relationship between the two men was confrontational. Netanyahu’s position was that because the Palestinian Authority (PA) had 0 missiles and Iran, together with its proxies, had roughly 150,000 missile ready to be shot at Israel, he was not concerned with peace negotiations which did not include Iran, while Obama continued the believe that key to peace for Israel was peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

For eight years, the two men treated each other as adversaries. Still, Netanyahu tried to stand up to Obama without destroying Israel’s good relations with United States. For the most part, he succeeded. but the relationship between Obama and Netanyahu was awful.

In 2016, Donald Trump was elected. From Netanyahu’s point of view that must have seemed like a breath of fresh air. He and Trump, had been friends for years . When Trump became President, his old friend Bibi was Israel’s Prime Minister. Netanyahu, apparently aware that Trump rewarded his friends, made sure that they remained friends. By dealing with Trump that way, Netanyahu got Trump to do a number of things for Israel, including moving the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and recognizing that the Golan was part of Israel.

Most importantly, just a few days before Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ( JCPOA), a plan that was supposed to delay Iran’s ability to make nuclear weapons, Netanyahu delivered a televised “Iran Lied” presentation. He disclosed that the Mossad had obtained access to a warehouse where Iran kept records which showed its past nuclear activity. The result was that The Mossad obtained 55,000 pages and 55,000 digital files describing Iran’s nuclear activities and brought them back to Israel. Those documents showed conclusively that Iran had been lying when it had said that it had NOT been violating the restrictions on it imposed by the JCPOA. In his speech announcing that the United States was withdrawing from the JCPOA, Trump stated that the documents the Mossad uncovered proved “conclusively” that Iran had misrepresented that it was complying with the JCPOA.

On April 3, 2026, while Trump was trying to negotiate a settlement with Iran, Trump said about Israel, “They’ll do what I tell them. They’ve been a good team player. They’ll stop when I stop. They’ll stop unless they’re provoked, in which case, they’ll have no choice, but they’ll stop when I stop.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-israel-will-do-what-i-tell-them-regarding-end-of-iran-war-will-stop-when-i-stop/

That is NOT how friends talk about friends. It is time for Israel to reciprocate. It is time for Israel to get tough.

Last week, I read three scary articles. The first one is from the Jerusalem Post. Relying on an article published in the New York Times, it explains that Iran has recovered 70% of the missile strength that it had before the present conflict took place. https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-895973

The second article, also from the Jerusalem Post, suggests that Trump is about to cave in to Iran. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-896066.

The third article comes from the Times of Israel. It quotes Hezbollah’s Secretary General Naim Qassam as saying, “No one outside Lebanon has any say in the weapons, the resistance, or the organization of Lebanon’s internal affairs. This is an internal Lebanese matter and not part of negotiations with the enemy.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hezbollah-leader-says-terror-groups-weapons-not-a-subject-of-israel-lebanon-talks-we-will-not-surrender/

Iran’s response to these comments were made by Ali Nikzad, the Deputy Speaker of Iran’s Parliament. During an interview on Lebanon’s Al-Nabar TV, Nikzad described the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran stating: “Hezbollah is the soul of Iran and Iran is the soul of Hezbollah.”

This does not bode well for Israel. If the present negotiations continue as they are, Israel will have gone to war for nothing. The only way that can be avoided is if Israel shows some backbone, agrees to play the evil party in the negotiations and lets Trump seem like the more reasonable one. Israel must tell Trump that he can no longer speak for it in the negotiations, of which Israel must be a part, and that Israel must be a signatory to the final document signed by the parties.

Israel must also make clear that when it makes a threat, it will follow through with it. Iran will believe that. If does not, Israel must follow through on the threat.

When it imposes its deadline. Israel should also submit a settlement offer which incudes the following provisions:

1. The Straights of Hormuz must be made open and Iran must agree never to close them again.

2. Iran must agree to cease its its activity to make a nuclear weapon and divest itself of all its enriched Uranium,

3. The United States must rescind all of its sanctions against Iran, thereby allowing Iran to receive Billions dollars, but none of that money can be used for military purposes or to fund any terrorist organization, including Hezbollah, the Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas.

4. Any agreement must prohibit any missiles, drones or other weapons of any sort from being transferred directly or indirectly by Iran to any of the countries or organizations listed above.

5. Iran must agree to inspections in order to verify that it is in compliance with the terms of the agreement.

Such an approach will show that Israel has backbone and should , thereby, break open the logjam created by the present negotiations. The alternative is unthinkable for everyone.