The Israeli response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s April 7 evening ceasefire announcement has been less than enthusiastic. “Israel supports President Trump’s decision to suspend strikes against Iran for two weeks subject to Iran immediately opening the straits and stopping all attacks on the U.S., Israel and countries in the region,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement only issued in English, reported the Times of Israel. “Israel also supports the U.S. effort to ensure that Iran no longer poses a nuclear, missile and terror threat to America, Israel, Iran’s Arab neighbors and the world,” the statement continues. “The United States has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals, shared by the U.S., Israel and Israel’s regional allies, in the upcoming negotiations.”
“There has never been such a diplomatic disaster in all our history,” Opposition leader Yair Lapid wrote on X. “Israel wasn’t even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security.” Lapid says that while “the military carried out everything it was asked to do [and] the public showed remarkable resilience,” Prime Minister Netanyahu “failed diplomatically, failed strategically and did not meet any of the goals he himself set.”
Lapid adds: “It will take us years to repair the diplomatic and strategic damage that Netanyahu caused due to arrogance, negligence and a lack of strategic planning.”
Danny Citrinowicz, an Israeli security and intelligence expert at the Atlantic Council and the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, sees the ceasefire as a strategic defeat for Israel: “Based on the NYT piece it’s obvious that this war was launched with sweeping promises: regime change in Iran, the dismantling of its missile and nuclear programs, and preventing it from threatening the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote on X.
