{"id":89134,"date":"2026-06-21T17:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/89134\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T17:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T17:27:11","slug":"us-iran-talks-in-switzerland-shunt-israel-to-the-sidelines-but-its-not-out-of-the-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/89134\/","title":{"rendered":"US-Iran talks in Switzerland shunt Israel to the sidelines, but it’s not out of the fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday looked like a bleak day for Israel.<\/p>\n

As talks opened in Burgenstock, Switzerland, on a US-Iran deal that could hardly be more high stakes for the country, Jerusalem was nowhere to be found, or heard.<\/p>\n

Relegated to the role of armchair quarterback, Israel could only figuratively yell at the TV\u00a0as its closest ally \u2014 the country that joined it in war against its arch-nemesis Iran some 100 days ago \u2014 began formally negotiating with Tehran on a permanent end to the conflict.<\/p>\n

As US Vice President JD Vance arrived at the Qatari-owned resort where talks were being held Sunday morning, he was greeted by delegations from Doha, Islamabad, and Tehran, all of whom have a seat at the table.<\/p>\n

Israel had no part in negotiating the MOU, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has distanced himself from it. Still, the terms of the opening clause, permanently ending the war and ruling out any resumption, indicate that it is binding on the US, Iran \u201cand their allies.\u201d Israeli officials are bitterly opposed to the deal\u2019s terms, which resolve none of the war\u2019s key goals \u2014 notably, eliminating Iran\u2019s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and creating the conditions for the fall of the regime.<\/p>\n

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The first item on their agenda, according to reports, was an emergency session on Israel\u2019s conflict with the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon. Of the two states and one terror proxy group with skin in the game, only Hezbollah, closely controlled and funded by Iran, could be said to have anything resembling representation in the negotiations.<\/p>\n

After two and a half years of steadily weakening Iran and its proxies, and proving itself as a powerful regional actor that could fight as an equal alongside the world\u2019s superpower, Israel is now seeing Tehran gain influence over both Washington and the regional agenda.<\/p>\n

The US-Iran memorandum of understanding and the talks now unfolding in Switzerland remain fresh and vulnerable to collapse. Yet even if they hold, they are unlikely to mark the end of Israel\u2019s fight against Iran so much as the start of a new phase \u2014 one in which Israel\u2019s next confrontation may be more solitary than it once hoped.<\/p>\n

Strait talk<\/p>\n

As negotiators in Switzerland prepared to discuss the future of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, the absence of both Israel and Lebanon suggests worryingly that Jerusalem had been placed in much the same category as Lebanon\u2019s weak central government \u2014 or, more troublingly, is seen as an American proxy much as Hezbollah is Iran\u2019s.<\/p>\n

While many in Israel understood that any end to the war would ultimately require American-brokered compromises, the rhetoric coming out of Washington has been strikingly unsympathetic to Israeli concerns.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUS Vice President JD Vance speaks at the Lake Lucerne Summit at the Burgenstock resort in Obbuergen, near Lucerne, Switzerland, Sunday, June 21, 2026. (Urs Flueeler, Pool Photo via AP)<\/p>\n

Vance, who did not mention Israel at all in his opening remarks at the negotiations, has made little effort to hide his impatience with the US\u2019s \u201cvery small partner,\u201d in the words of his boss US President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

He has dismissed concerns over the memorandum of understanding and emerging nuclear negotiations, telling reporters he found \u201cthis whole freakout in Israel a little bit odd\u201d and a sign of unwarranted \u201cmistrust.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has argued that \u201cyou can\u2019t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem,\u201d urged Israeli critics to \u201cwake up and smell the reality,\u201d and, at a recent White House briefing, reminded Jerusalem that Trump is now among the few world leaders openly sympathetic to Israel while noting how much of its arsenal is American-made.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tDisplaced residents hold an Iranian and a Hezbollah flags as they pass by a destroyed building that was hit in a previous Israeli airstrike in the southern village of Chehabiyeh, Lebanon, June 16, 2026. (AP Photo\/ Mohammed Zaatari)<\/p>\n

Washington\u2019s growing willingness to pressure Israel in public has boosted the perception that Iran had arrived at these talks carrying the ultimate leverage through the Strait of Hormuz, with Israel seen as an obstacle to getting the vital waterway open.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s MOU dictated no more fighting in Lebanon, but Hezbollah has continued attacking soldiers in the southern Lebanon security zone, prompting retaliatory strikes from Israel.<\/p>\n

After Tehran declared the Strait of Hormuz shut again on Saturday \u2014 citing continued Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon \u2014 the talks\u2019 opening session was restructured around the Lebanon question rather than the nuclear file, showing Iran\u2019s ability to use the threat of economic disruption to constrain Israeli military action.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s willingness to go along with Iran on Lebanon may pave the way to short-term gains on Hormuz. But it hardly serves US strategic interests, argued Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAcceding to Iran\u2019s demand on [Lebanon] undermines not one but two American allies \u2014 democratically elected governments in Beirut and Jerusalem \u2014 as well as the longstanding US policy of supporting direct negotiations between the parties,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the process, this lends wholly undeserved support to Iran\u2019s baseless claim that its backing of a terrorist organization \u2013 Hezbollah \u2013 gives it legitimate standing to determine the fate of Lebanon,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Election tension<\/p>\n

The fact that both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are facing upcoming elections \u2014 the US is not voting for president this year but so-called midterm elections will determine how much support Trump will have in Congress, as well as foreshadow the 2028 ballot \u2014 only heightens the tense political standoff between Jerusalem and Washington, with both leaders seeking largely mutually exclusive goals to sell to their domestic publics.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order for Bibi to avoid his worst-case scenario [of losing the election], he needs to keep up a very strong position on Lebanon,\u201d said Michael Oren, former Israeli ambassador to Washington, using Netanyahu\u2019s nickname. \u201cAnd Trump, in order to keep his position, to avoid his nightmare, he has to prevent Bibi\u201d from doing so.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tUS Vice President JD Vance (L) waits, alongside US President Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff (C) and Jared Kushner, to meet with Pakistan\u2019s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif (not seen), at the Burgenstock luxury hotel complex overlooking Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 21, 2026 (Nathan Howard \/ POOL \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Israel has bit the bullet and accepted diktats from the US in the past, but Oren argued there was a limit to how much Jerusalem would go along with, especially regarding its defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never a question about what Israel can do. It\u2019s what Israel must do. And this country cannot, cannot countenance or endure Hezbollah fire on our soldiers or our civilians,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019ll have to strike back\u2026 this is a paramount strategic interest of the state of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Iran will likely continue to test how far its leverage over Hormuz can go in Lebanon, and it very well may test whether the same formula can shield Hamas, the Houthis and other regional proxies, or influence future policies in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

Too many eggs in US basket<\/p>\n

None of this means Israel\u2019s fight against Iran or its proxies is over.<\/p>\n

Whatever comes out of Burgenstock will likely be framed by Trump as a victory as he tries to show he\u2019s in control.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu, as he largely has been up until now, will be in the uncomfortable position of deciding how loudly to object to an agreement Israel never signed.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tPolicemen walk in front of a huge banner showing the Iranian flag at the Islamic Revolution square in Tehran, Iran, June 14, 2026. (AP Photo\/Vahid Salemi)<\/p>\n

Yet Israel\u2019s exclusion from the talks is not necessarily a liability. If Jerusalem is not formally party to any understanding reached in Switzerland, it can argue that it remains unbound by it \u2014 that its military options against Iran\u2019s nuclear program, regional proxies and remaining infrastructure have not been negotiated away.<\/p>\n

Washington may even have structured things this way deliberately, to give Israel a plausible distance. There is also the possibility that the public tensions between Trump and Netanyahu mask continued coordination behind the scenes, as they did in previous US-Iran nuclear talks.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s just as likely, if not more so, that Trump is simply eager to find a diplomatic off-ramp for a war that has angered Americans and driven prices up.<\/p>\n

And even if negotiations advance, Israel can still realistically hope that Tehran will eventually overplay its hand and force Trump to break off the negotiations, Oren added.<\/p>\n

There seems to be no getting around the shift in the broader strategic landscape, though.<\/p>\n

The Gulf states have spent months watching the Hormuz crisis unfold and drawing their own conclusions about the durability of American power in the region and the US-Israel security umbrella.<\/p>\n

That poses a challenge for the broader logic that underpinned the US-brokered Abraham Accords normalization agreements.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"
\n\t\tUS President Donald Trump stands with Gulf leaders for a group photo during a meeting he attended with the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh on May 14, 2025. (Brendan SMIALOWSKI \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cement of the Abraham Accords was the belief in the staying power of American force. And that\u2019s not happening,\u201d Oren said, warning that \u201cthere\u2019s a greater possibility that Gulf states will start gravitating toward Tehran now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turkey, Pakistan, and Qatar are now seen as key regional mediators, and none of them is likely to push policies that benefit Israel.<\/p>\n

None of this diminishes the importance of the US-Israel alliance. Military and intelligence ties forged during the war remain deeper than ever. But it does reinforce the need for Israel to broaden its strategic options beyond Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout 97% of our security purchases are from the United States. And that\u2019s too many eggs in one basket\u2026 also in view of what\u2019s happening politically in America, we have to diversify our foreign policy portfolio,\u201d Oren said. \u201cIt is the only thing we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Washington remains an indispensable ally for Israel. Yet the conditions that made a genuine wartime partnership possible earlier this year may not return anytime soon. The fight to prevent Iran from rebuilding its nuclear and missile capabilities, rearming Hezbollah and other proxies and consolidating its regional gains could continue for years \u2014 and with less help than Israel once expected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sunday looked like a bleak day for Israel. As talks opened in Burgenstock, Switzerland, on a US-Iran deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[44583,5423,18,3188,17],"class_list":["post-89134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-switzerland","tag-2026-us-iran-memorandum-of-understanding","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-iran","tag-switzerland"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116789277558178531","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}