Khaled Yousef
15 June 2026•Update: 15 June 2026
- ‘We love the United States and are grateful to President Trump. And at the same time, the State of Israel is not a banana republic,’ Ben-Gvir says
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came under fire from opposition politicians and coalition partners on Monday following a US-Iran agreement to end war, calling the deal “the greatest strategic failure in Israel’s history.”
“Israeli citizens are waking up to an agreement between the United States and Iran made over Israel's head,” Yair Golan, head of Israel’s Democrats Party, said on the US social media company X.
“This is the culmination of long years of failure,” he added, accusing Netanyahu of selling Israelis “a false image of security.”
“Netanyahu is the man who, for years, sold the public a false image of ‘Mr. Security,’ and in reality became the father of Israel's greatest strategic failure in its history,” he said.
“The one who promised ‘total victory’ ends his tenure with Israel's enemies stronger, Israel weaker, and the deterrence built with the blood of our fighters eroding before our very eyes,” Golan said.
“Replacing him [Netanyahu] is not just a political necessity -- it is an existential security imperative.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced early Monday that the US and Iran had reached an agreement following intensive negotiations, with Washington and Tehran declaring an immediate and permanent end to military operations across all fronts, including in Lebanon.
Benny Gantz, head of the Blue and White party, described the US-Iran agreement as a “strategic failure” that will have long-term consequences for Israel.
“The emerging agreement with Iran appears to be a strategic failure that will require Israel to engage in diplomatic, military, and legal struggles in the coming years,” Gantz, a former defense minister, said on X.
“Under no circumstances -- it is forbidden to agree to restrict Israel's freedom of action in Lebanon or to a withdrawal that endangers the residents of the north,” he added.
‘Bad for Israel’
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said the US-Iran agreement does not bind Israel.
“Israel is not subject to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign nation,” he said on X. “We love the United States and are grateful to President Trump. And at the same time, the State of Israel is not a banana republic.”
“We are not partners in this agreement that does not concern us for our security, and it does not bind us in any way,” Ben-Gvir said. “We must not compromise on anything less than the dismantling of Hezbollah, we must not withdraw from any territory that our fighters have conquered and cleared of terrorist infrastructure.”
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also denounced the deal as “bad for Israel and for the entire free world.”
“The joint campaign had many achievements in weakening Iran, and they will not go to waste,” Smotrich claimed in a post on the US social media platform X.
“We will have to continue the campaign to topple the regime ourselves and in creative ways, and ensure that Iran will never have nuclear weapons,” he said.
Regional tensions have escalated since late February after the US and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran, killing more than 3,000 people. Tehran retaliated with strikes on Gulf countries and Israel, as well as restricting passage through the Strait of Hormuz.
Washington and Tehran reached a temporary truce on April 8 through Pakistani mediation, before the two sides announced a framework deal to end their conflict, to be signed in Switzerland on July 19.
*Writing by Lina Altawell in Istanbul
