Trump Stabbed Israel in the Back

Donald Trump, the man who spent years thundering that Barack Obama's Iran deal was the worst agreement in the history of diplomacy, has just handed Tehran a package that makes the JCPOA look like maximum pressure. He has rewarded Iran with $12 billion in unfrozen assets before negotiations even begin, a lifting of the U.S. naval blockade, an end to oil sanctions, and the implicit international legitimacy the regime has craved for decades. And in exchange? Iran has "committed" not to build a nuclear bomb. A verbal commitment. From the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Where have we heard that before?

Obama at least got centrifuges dismantled, enriched uranium shipped out of the country, and IAEA inspectors on the ground. Trump got a memorandum of understanding, a signing ceremony in Switzerland, and a thumbs-up from Putin and Xi Jinping, whom he effusively thanked for their help. He is proud of this. He said so.

Meanwhile, Iran's military issued a triumphant statement declaring that it had "humiliated" the United States and Israel. The ayatollahs are dancing in the streets of Tehran, and why wouldn't they be? They closed the Strait of Hormuz, bled the global economy, survived U.S. and Israeli strikes on their nuclear sites, and emerged from the wreckage with their regime intact, their enrichment program unresolved, $24 billion coming their way, and the promise of more.

And Israel? Israel wasn't even in the room.

Not consulted. Not included. Not warned. The country most existentially threatened by an Iranian bomb was simply handed a ceasefire framework it didn't ask for, told to stop hitting Hezbollah targets in Beirut, and informed by the President of the United States that its Prime Minister is "a very difficult guy" who "should be very thankful." On another call, according to multiple sourced reports, Trump reportedly screamed at Netanyahu: "You're f---ing crazy. You'd be in prison if it weren't for me. Everybody hates Israel because of you."

That is how America's closest ally in the Middle East was treated while Trump was busy cutting deals with the people who chant "Death to Israel" at Friday prayers.

Let's not pretend this is about Trump being some neutral dealmaker. This is a man who built his entire political brand on the premise that he alone could break Iran, that Obama was a naive fool taken to the cleaners by mullahs who laughed all the way to their centrifuges. He promised something better. Something tougher. Something that would actually work.

Instead, he has delivered something structurally identical to the Obama deal, stripped of its verification mechanisms, turbocharged with upfront cash, and gift-wrapped with a side agreement that effectively forbids Israel from defending itself in Lebanon.

The nuclear question, by the way, has been deferred to future talks. Sixty days of negotiations, the outcome of which depend entirely on whether Iran decides to cooperate. Iran's enrichment program, sitting at 60% purity with hundreds of kilograms of material stockpiled, remains untouched for now. The actual hard problem has been kicked down the road. Again. Just as it was in 2015. Just as it always is when Washington decides it wants a deal more than it wants a solution.

Obama's deal was naive. Trump's deal is worse, because it arrives after Iran was militarily degraded, after the United States demonstrated it could strike deep inside Iranian territory, after Iran's proxies were battered across the region. Trump had leverage Obama never had. He chose to trade it for a photo opportunity in Geneva and a Truth Social post declaring victory.

"This great deal will bring peace and security to the whole region," Trump wrote Sunday night.

Tell that to Israel, which is bracing for Hezbollah rocket fire it is now being told it cannot respond to. Tell that to the families in the north who spent months in shelters while their government was shut out of negotiations that determined the terms of their security. Tell that to every Israeli official who watched in horror as the agreement's terms filtered through Iranian state media, a document they had no hand in drafting and no ability to shape.

Obama sold Israel out with a smile and a speech in Prague. Trump is doing it with a shrug and an insult, telling the world that Netanyahu should be grateful, that he'd be in prison without American protection, that Israel has no judgment and no right to act in its own defense without American permission.

This is not the behavior of an ally. This is the behavior of a patron who has decided the relationship is a burden, and is making sure the junior partner knows it.

The tragedy is that many in Israel and in the American Jewish community spent years defending Trump, insisting that his brashness masked a genuine commitment to Israeli security, that moving the embassy and killing Soleimani and brokering the Abraham Accords proved he was different. Maybe he was, for a while. But what we are watching now is not an ally negotiating on Israel's behalf. It is a dealmaker closing a transaction, and Israel is the collateral.

Barack Obama gave Iran a path back to the table. Donald Trump has given Iran a victory parade.

History will not be kind to either of them. But at least Obama didn't call Netanyahu crazy while he was doing it.