The peace deal between the US and Iran calls not just for the cessation of hostilities between the two countries, but also between Israel and Hezbollah. It also calls for Lebanese territorial integrity and sovereignty to be respected.
This places Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a political conundrum, because ceasing hostilities against Hezbollah runs contrary to his government’s determination to finally crush its nemesis.
Netanyahu now faces difficult decisions. Does he kowtow to the US, Israel’s longstanding ally and security guarantor, in an election year? Or does he defy the US and continue Israel’s military onslaught against Hezbollah?
An answer to these questions seemed to come in part on June 19, when Israel and Hezbollah agreed on yet another ceasefire. However, the next day Israel bombed Lebanon, and Iran once again closed the Strait of Hormuz.
Elections at home
Since the beginning of Israel’s current war against Hezbollah in March 2026, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has advanced into southern and eastern Lebanon. In the process, the IDF has pushed Hezbollah out of its traditional strongholds and bombed targets in southern Beirut.
To date, the war has killed more than 4,000 Lebanese people and forced another 1 million to flee their homes. On June 1, IDF units captured the strategically important Beaufort Castle, allowing the IDF to control most of southern Lebanon, including Hezbollah strongholds in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon.
Within the areas it now occupies, the IDF has issued “don’t come back” orders, forcibly displacing thousands of Lebanese residents from their homes. On June 15, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz stated, “Israeli forces will remain in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza without any time limit” and the zones “would be cleared of local residents and all terror infrastructure including the houses”.
The war is immensely popular in Israel. An April 2026 poll revealed 80% of respondents favoured continuing the war against Hezbollah, even if that created friction with the US. The war’s popularity is crucial for Netanyahu, with national elections due to be held by October. He is desperate to win another term as prime minister to forestall his long-running corruption trial and stifle debates over his culpability for the intelligence failures that lead to Hamas’s devastating October 7 attacks.
In their aftermath, Netanyahu vowed to dramatically change the political landscape of the Middle East. He did this with wars on Hamas, Iran, and Hezbollah.
But while these wars have significantly degraded the ability of his nemeses to threaten Israel, they have not been defeated as promised. This means while Netanyahu has indeed changed the political landscape of the Middle East, his wars have arguably made Israel less, rather than more, secure.
Criticism of Netanyahu’s handling of these wars has been growing, with Opposition politician Yair Golan declaring:
Netanyahu lied. He promised a historic victory and security for generations, and in practice, we got one of the most severe strategic failures Israel has ever known.
Netanyahu needs continuing military successes in Lebanon to sustain his narrative that he is making Israel safer by defeating its enemies.
Elections abroad
However, US President Donald Trump is also facing an unfavourable domestic political environment in the lead up to US mid-term elections. Trump needs an end to an unpopular war to try to create a positive political narrative to stave off potentially losing control of the House and the Senate.
He does not want Israeli truculence to make already tense negotiations with Iran harder. For their part, the Iranians have made the cessation of Israel’s war on Hezbollah and its withdrawal from southern Lebanon the central issue in deciding whether to continue negotiating with the US. This is why Iran again closed the vital Strait of Hormuz after Israel bombed Lebanon on the weekend.
So while Israel and the US may be allies, it is not an equal relationship. The geopolitical needs and desires of the US as the great power will always eclipse those of Israel as the middle power.
Therefore, as prime ministerial aspirant Yair Lapid, puts it, Netanyahu faces “either a direct and destructive confrontation with our greatest ally or a submissive surrender of Israeli interests”.
Evidence of how strained the relationship between Trump and Netanyahu is came just before the president signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Iran. Trump castigated Netanyahu for ordering the bombing of Hezbollah targets in southern Beirut. He later suggested Syria would do a better job at fighting Hezbollah stating:
I’m not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah. It just goes on forever and it throws a negative light on the big deal, and that’s the deal with Iran.
Despite the president’s frustrations there has been push-back from senior Israeli ministers. National Security Minister Ben Gvir said:
The prime minister should have told President Trump: We appreciate you, but Israel is a sovereign and independent state that cannot accept the strengthening, or even the existence, of a terrorist organisation on its borders.
In response US Vice President JD Vance stated bluntly that Israeli critics of the US-Iran deal, “need to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in”.
In other words, Israel needs the US more than the US needs Israel. Israel relies on US financial and military support for its security, with the two allies recently signing their own MoU that guarantees the US giving Israel US$3.8 billion per year, including US$500 million for missile defence.
Israel also needs ongoing US diplomatic support to shield it from any future United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions. These may come from the concurrent investigations by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) into allegations of Israel committing genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in its wars against Hamas and Hezbollah.
The situation in Lebanon remains highly volatile, the Israeli people are due to cast their votes before October, and the US is finalising a deal with Iran that will likely run contrary to Israel’s interests. The question now is what Israel is going to do about it.
