JERUSALEM – So far, Israel has remained on the sidelines of the mounting clashes between Iran and the United States over the past week. The question is whether that will last if the escalation worsens.
US President Donald Trump launched the war on Iran alongside Israel in late February, with the two militaries working more closely than ever before. But as the war dragged on, Trump increasingly parted ways with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on how to prosecute the campaign – and whether to continue it at all.
That divergence was evident in June, as Israel and Iran traded attacks for the first time since an April truce ended the fiercest fighting between the three countries. Trump called Netanyahu and told him to stop escalating Israel’s attacks, arguing that the United States was close to reaching a deal with Iran, according to multiple officials briefed on the call.
Bucking Israeli opposition, Trump ended up signing an agreement with Iran in June to stop fighting and negotiate a broader end to the conflict. But the ceasefire was short-lived, and the United States and Iran have since returned to an escalating cycle of strikes and counterstrikes.
Since that ceasefire, however, Iranian forces have not directly bombarded Israel, a move that would likely herald a return to full-blown war. Last week, Netanyahu said Israel was prepared to inflict massive damage against Iran if attacked.
“I will say this to the leaders of Iran: Do not count on it being quiet if you attack us,” he said at a conference in southern Israel, adding that Israel’s retaliation would be “much more powerful” than during the war earlier in 2026.
Nonetheless, the fighting has crept noticeably closer to Israel’s borders over the past week.
On July 19, Israeli forces fired interceptor rockets amid an incoming Iranian barrage for the first time in several weeks. The attack was aimed at the neighbouring country of Jordan, but the military said it had to shoot “missile debris” out of the sky to prevent it from landing in Israeli territory.
Israeli analysts say the Israeli leader has reasons – both political and personal – to resume the war.
Netanyahu now faces hotly contested national elections in October. The Israeli public could head to the polls with the war, which many view as having mixed results or even as an abject failure, still hanging overhead.
Many of Netanyahu’s lofty war aims – which included eliminating Iran’s nuclear programme and laying the groundwork to topple the Islamic Republic – remain very much unfinished.
Iran’s leadership emerged from the conflict battered but intact. Its nuclear programme and ballistic missile apparatus resisted Israeli and US efforts to wipe them out. And the deal Trump negotiated did not even touch Iran’s support for Hezbollah, Hamas and other anti-Israel proxy militias across the Middle East.
But Netanyahu must also balance those concerns with appeasing Trump, for whom the war quickly became an unpopular headache with no clear off-ramp. By resuming the war without Trump’s say-so, Netanyahu would risk compromising Israel’s ties with its most important ally on the world stage. NYTIMES
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
