Iran\u2019s government is still in power. Hezbollah and Hamas haven\u2019t been defeated. President Trump\u2019s interests may be diverging from Israel\u2019s. <\/p>\n
Wars with Iran and its proxies haven\u2019t gone according to plan for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and that could mean trouble for Israel\u2019s longest-serving prime minister in elections scheduled for later this year. Many Israelis are dissatisfied with the Netanyahu government\u2019s wartime leadership, according to a recent poll.<\/p>\n
At the start of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran in late February, Netanyahu said the goal was to degrade the Islamic Republic\u2019s military, eradicate its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and create the conditions for its overthrow. While Iran\u2019s military has been badly damaged, it is still a threat to neighbors and ships in the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 and Netanyahu\u2019s other goals remained unfulfilled when a ceasefire was announced earlier this month.<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s latest war with Hezbollah in Lebanon has also been cut short. Netanyahu said that he agreed to a truce at Trump\u2019s request but that Israel was \u201cnot finished yet\u201d with the Iran-backed militant group; Israeli forces are still occupying a 6-mile-deep swath of southern Lebanon.<\/p>\n
The recent poll showing Israelis\u2019 dissatisfaction comes on top of the unresolved war in the Gaza Strip \u2014 another instance in which Trump pressured Netanyahu to wind down military operations. More than two years after Hamas\u2019 October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza, the Iran-backed militant group is weakened but still standing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter 925 days of fighting since October 7, Israel has failed to achieve decisive victory on any front,\u201d wrote Yoav Limor, a prominent military affairs commentator. \u201cAt the end of yet another war, it is perceived as a country whose decisions are not made in Jerusalem, but in Washington.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Netanyahu has cast the war with Iran as a success, a preemptive strike against an \u201cexistential\u201d threat. \u201cWe crushed the Iranian regime\u2019s destruction machine in advance,\u201d he recently said. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s years-long unpopularity<\/p>\n
Trust in Netanyahu\u2019s government nosedived after the deadly 2023 Hamas attack. He spent the next two years waging a fierce retaliatory campaign against Hamas and its allies and secured the release of dozens of hostages from Gaza as part of a ceasefire deal.<\/p>\n
Israel has also enjoyed a number of military successes against Iran and its Lebanese proxy, the Hezbollah militant group. But these gains do not appear to have benefited Netanyahu personally. While the latest wars against Iran and Hezbollah were widely supported, the inconclusive outcomes have left many Israelis feeling fatigued and disappointed.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were disappointed because it hadn\u2019t achieved the goals,\u201d said Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst in Tel Aviv. <\/p>\n
A poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, a centrist think tank in Jerusalem, during the first week of the war against Iran found a solid majority of respondents, 64%, trusted Netanyahu to direct the campaign. But a second poll in the days after the April 8 ceasefire found that Israelis rated the management of the war by the government \u2014 not just Netanyahu \u2014 more negatively than positively.<\/p>\n
The poll, which was conducted before the U.S. brokered and extended the ceasefire in Lebanon, also found that a majority of Israelis thought the fighting in Lebanon against Hezbollah should continue.<\/p>\n
Pushed into two ceasefires<\/p>\n
Since the ceasefires with Iran and Hezbollah, Israelis have begun to question whether the relationship between Netanyahu and Trump \u2014 and Israel and the United States more broadly \u2014 is as strong as it was before the wars began.<\/p>\n
Though Trump\u2019s interests have at times diverged from those of Netanyahu, the U.S. president has continued to publicly laud Israel. He wrote on social media recently that \u201cwhether people like Israel or not, they have proven to be a GREAT Ally of the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Thursday that he\u2019d host Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House in the \u201cnear future\u201d for talks on the truce, describing it as an honor. <\/p>\n
In the Israel Democracy Institute\u2019s poll, most Israelis said there was a \u201cfairly\u201d or \u201cvery\u201d low likelihood that the agreement reached between the U.S. and Iran would take Israel\u2019s security into account to an appropriate degree.<\/p>\n
Asked about the leaders\u2019 relationship, Netanyahu\u2019s office declined to comment. But an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations said Trump and Netanyahu still speak every day.<\/p>\n
Late last year, Netanyahu announced he would award the Israel Prize, one of the country\u2019s highest honors, to Trump, making him the first foreign leader to receive it. Israel invited Trump to formally accept the award in Jerusalem on April 22, as part of the country\u2019s 78th celebration of its independence. <\/p>\n
The day came and went without a Trump visit.<\/p>\n
In northern Israel, fear and anger<\/p>\n
The ceasefire with Lebanon has stoked deep disappointment in Israeli towns near the border that have endured a month and a half of missile fire from Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
\u201cI live 100 meters from the border,\u201d said Asaf Oakil, a resident of Kiryat Shmona. \u201cThe ceasefire? It\u2019s a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shops are still closed and protests have broken out in recent days, with much of the anger directed at Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really hope that the residents of the north will learn from this and vote for someone who can help us here, not someone who brings us down and buries us,\u201d said Shosh Tsaoula, another resident of Kiryat Shmona. <\/p>\n
Netanyahu\u2019s government is in the final months of its four-year term and is required to hold elections by the end of October.<\/p>\n
Two opposition politicians \u2014 Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid \u2014 announced Sunday that they would join forces in the next election. Another popular opposition figure, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot, is also expected to team up with them.<\/p>\n
Nadav Eyal, a commentator with the Israeli Yediot Aharonot daily newspaper, said that Netanyahu is in \u201cbig trouble\u201d if he cannot convince Israelis that the wars with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas have led to lasting security gains. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith unstable ceasefires that can lapse at any given point, voters will be not happy about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frankel writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Ibrahim Hazboun and Sam Metz contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s government is still in power. Hezbollah and Hamas haven\u2019t been defeated. President Trump\u2019s interests may be diverging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[3065,395,30207,2254,394,1411,100,196,37,93,30205,876,722,30206,878],"class_list":{"0":"post-84696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-ceasefire","9":"tag-day","10":"tag-election-loom","11":"tag-gaza-strip","12":"tag-government","13":"tag-hamas","14":"tag-hezbollah","15":"tag-iran-war","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-lebanon","18":"tag-many-israelis","19":"tag-netanyahu","20":"tag-president-trump","21":"tag-recent-poll","22":"tag-year"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116472616229658339","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}