Trump’s popularity among Israelis fades after Iran MOU

Israelis put a lot of faith in Trump as the guy who'd finally deal with Iran the way it deserved to be dealt with, not the way it's been managed for three decades. So when word came down about a memorandum of understanding rather than the kind of decisive move many were braced for, the disappointment was real and, frankly, understandable. Hope is a dangerous thing when you're the one living forty miles from Hezbollah's rocket stockpiles.

But let's separate the emotion from the substance here. An MOU is not a treaty. It's not even close to a final word on how this administration handles Tehran. What it looks like, if you squint, is a negotiating posture, buying time and information while keeping every option on the table. That's not the same as capitulation, even if it feels that way to people who wanted a hammer blow instead of a handshake.

Where we'd push back is on the assumption baked into a lot of this coverage: that anything short of maximum aggression toward Iran counts as betrayal. Israel's security concerns are legitimate and America should take them seriously, but American foreign policy doesn't exist to satisfy every ally's preferred timeline for confrontation. Trump has spent years positioning himself as the president who ends wars rather than starts new ones in the Middle East. An agreement that slows Iran down without another American war is not obviously a failure just because it isn't a knockout punch.

None of that means Israelis are wrong to watch this closely, or that the administration gets a pass if the MOU turns out to be toothless. Trust is earned through outcomes, not promises. If Iran uses this breathing room to rebuild and rearm, the criticism will be deserved and we'll say so. But judging the deal before we've seen what it actually produces is jumping the gun, and that's a habit Washington and Jerusalem both know well.