With one strike, Netanyahu tries to kill two peace deals
Netanyahu knew exactly what he was doing when he defied Trump's red line and struck Beirut this morning
It’s important to understand that, contrary to Donald Trump’s quip to Barak Ravid that Netanyahu has “no f***ing judgment,” the Israeli Prime Minister knows exactly what he is doing: With a set of strikes at the Dahiyeh neighborhood in Beirut, he is trying to kill both the pending US-Iran peace deal and the fragile peace between Israel and Lebanon that would come with it.
There is a further strategic dividend. Netanyahu is also seeking to preempt Iran’s attempt to establish a new regional deterrence equation—one in which attacks on Beirut, and potentially on Lebanon more broadly, would trigger a direct Iranian response against Israel. By striking now, he is not merely targeting an adversary; he is challenging the emergence of a regional order that would constrain Israel’s freedom of military action.
Netanyahu even posted a video on his Twitter bragging about the attack:
The exchange of fire between Israel and Iran last week was about far more than retaliation. After Israel defied President Trump and struck Beirut’s Dahiyeh neighborhood, Iran responded by attacking Israel directly—the first time Tehran had launched strikes on Israel in response to an Israeli attack on Lebanon. Israel defied Trump once more and retaliated against Iran, prompting another Iranian response, after which Israel confined its next strike to southern Lebanon rather than Beirut.
The cycle reflected Iran’s attempt to establish a new regional equation: that attacks on Lebanon would no longer be cost-free for Israel, but would carry the risk of direct Iranian retaliation. For the first time in decades, a major regional power was seeking to place hard-power constraints on Israel’s freedom of military action beyond its borders.
Having reestablished its own deterrence, Tehran was now attempting to establish extended deterrence to its partners as part of a broader effort to rebuild its forward-defense posture. Israel, unsurprisingly, viewed this as a direct challenge to its long-standing freedom of maneuver and moved quickly to prevent the new doctrine from taking hold.
Of course, extended deterrence can not be established through a single exchange of fire. At a minimum, it would require several rounds of action and reaction before either side accepted it as a new reality. And even then, it would never be foolproof. Tehran understands that its purpose cannot simply be to eliminate Israeli strikes on Lebanon, but to force Israeli leaders to think twice before authorizing them by attaching a new and significant cost: the likelihood of direct Iranian retaliation.
It was therefore clear that Netanyahu had not abandoned the fight. Yet for several days, even as Hezbollah and Israel continued to exchange fire, he refrained from striking Beirut’s southern suburbs and testing Iran’s new red line.
But today, just hours before President Trump was expecting Iran to sign a memorandum that would end the U.S.-Iran war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Netanyahu crossed both Tehran’s and Trump’s red line: keeping Beirut out of the conflict.
Netanyahu clearly timed this for maximum impact. With a single set of strikes, Netanyahu may have advanced two goals at once—torpedoing Trump’s peace deal and preventing the emergence of a new deterrence equation that would impose meaningful constraints on Israel’s military operations in Lebanon.
A diplomat involved in the talks told Fox News that: “This is a clear attempt by Israel to sabotage the President’s deal and drag the United States back into war.”
Trump, meanwhile, is once again reportedly “pissed off” at Netanyahu. In a Truth Social post, the president declared that the strike on Beirut “should not have happened,” while pointedly questioning whether it was a proportionate response to Hezbollah’s latest attack on Israel.
“Israel has the right to defend itself against threats,” Trump wrote, “but the attack it was responding to was very small and meaningless. Nobody was hurt, injured, or killed, and it should not disrupt this important process.”
The statement was notable not merely for its criticism of Netanyahu, but for what it implied: that Israel’s strike was neither militarily necessary nor diplomatically prudent at a moment when a potential breakthrough with Iran appeared within reach.
Washington is frustrated by Tehran’s insistence that Trump rein in Israel, even as American officials believe Iran has failed to similarly restrain Hezbollah. It is equally frustrated that a deal it urgently wants with Iran is now being held hostage by Israel, ironically at the request of the Iranians, since it is Tehran that insists that any ceasefire must be region-wide and prevent Israel from having the ability to restart the war.
That frustration is understandable. But Washington must also recognize a basic reality: the only way to delink a U.S.-Iran agreement from the Israel-Lebanon conflict is to delink the United States itself from Israel’s recurring resort to military escalation.
As long as Israel retains the capacity to drag the United States back into conflict, Tehran will see little reason to separate diplomacy with Washington from the wars Israel chooses to start and pull the US into.
Indeed, the principal reason Tehran insists on a region-wide ceasefire is to deny Israel the ability to draw the United States into yet another war with Iran itself.
If Trump were to clearly establish that the United States would neither participate in nor defend an unjustified Israeli military escalation, Tehran might no longer see the need to link a U.S.-Iran accord to the Israel-Lebanon front.
Such a calculated distancing from Israel would serve American interests in any case. But the need for it has rarely been more apparent than it is today.
I wish the world would completely sanction Israel and stop their genocidal, fascist invasions of land that is not theirs. They are a menace in the world!
I am so upset about this insanity. Trump better threaten Israeli with meaningful threats! Such as this insane idea of "merging Israeli military with America ". This would be "suicide" for America. And he should threaten no more money sent to Israel period for anything! Maybe that will stop Netanyahu from his bloodthirsty insanity!