To say emotions are running high in Israel would be an understatement. It is difficult to describe exactly what many Israelis are feeling right now, but anger and betrayal come close.
For nearly three years, Israelis have lived in a state of permanent emergency. We have buried friends and family members. We have spent nights running for our lives or sleeping in underground bomb shelters. Entire communities were evacuated, homeless in their own country. A generation of children has grown up with more trauma than the average person should experience in a lifetime.
And through it all, Israelis accepted extraordinary sacrifice because we believed there was a purpose behind it.
When protests erupted across Iran in late December 2025, and the world caught a glimpse of the horror that unfolded between January 8 and 9, many Israelis felt something they had not felt in years: the possibility that history was shifting. The same regime that plunged Iran into a nationwide internet blackout to conceal the slaughter of an estimated 36,500 Iranians was the same regime that financed and trained Hamas to carry out the October 7 massacre. It was the same regime whose proxy, Hezbollah, spent years preparing to inflict a similar catastrophe on Israel's northern border.
While Israelis were exhausted, we understood that this might be a historic opportunity. The regime was weaker than it had been in decades, and its brutality was exposed for the world to see. Its network of proxies had been significantly degraded. And for the first time in modern history, there appeared to be a sitting American president willing to confront the regime at its source rather than merely manage the threat it posed.
No one wanted another war. But many Israelis believed another confrontation was inevitable, and that if there was ever a moment to finish the job, this was it. After everything we had endured, we were prepared to see it through.
We were not promised regime change. We knew that was something to hope for, not something guaranteed. But we were told that Iran's path to a nuclear weapon would be blocked, that its ballistic missile program would be seriously degraded, and that the regime's network of proxies surrounding Israel would finally be addressed at its source.
Yet here we are, halfway through 2026. The threats surrounding Israel are weaker than they were a year ago, but they remain very much alive. The job is far from finished.
For all of this to end with an agreement that grants breathing room to the same regime that slaughtered its own people, fueled wars across the Middle East, killed hundreds of Americans, and spent decades threatening Israel feels like a profound betrayal.
Pakistan has published what it claims are the details of the memorandum of understanding between the United States and the regime in Iran. If those details are accurate, Trump's Iran deal is a betrayal of every American, every Iranian, every Israeli, and every victim of the regime's terror and repression.
While we still do not know the full details of the agreement, Israelis are confronting a painful possibility: after years of war and sacrifice, we may be returning to the very reality we were told we were changing.
So, where is Israeli society now?
Public confidence in political leadership had already eroded. The war had dragged on longer than many imagined. The objectives became harder to define. The costs became impossible to ignore. Yet most Israelis continued to endure because they believed the regime that spent decades funding terrorism, destabilizing governments, and threatening Israel's destruction would finally face meaningful consequences.
Today, many Israelis are questioning whether those goals were ever truly within reach.
The story is far from over. But one thing can already be said with certainty: a 60-day negotiating window is a gift to a regime that has spent decades using diplomacy to buy time, regroup, rearm, and extract ever greater concessions from the West. The Iranian regime has transformed negotiations into a strategic weapon. There is no reason to believe this time will be different.
Israelis and Americans have seen this cycle before. We know how it ends.
What makes this moment particularly painful is that many believed the Iranian people might finally have an opportunity to reclaim their future from a government that has spent decades terrorizing both its own citizens and its neighbors. Instead, the world now appears prepared to negotiate with the very regime responsible for that repression.
If this is how the story ends, and if this agreement ultimately serves only to preserve the regime, then Israelis will be forced to confront a painful question: what exactly were the last three years for?
We accepted extraordinary sacrifice because we believed we were changing the strategic reality of the Middle East. If we are simply returning to the same reality we were promised would be transformed, then the consequences will extend far beyond this deal. They will shape how Israelis view their leaders, their allies, and the promises made to them in times of war.
