It's apparent to me that President Trump does not control Israel. It remains to be seen how they handle this deal.
I hope they can control Bibi. I would love to see Trump having more time on his hands to spend on the America first agenda, and not entanglement in wars we don't need. There is still a lot of work to be done with the illegal immigration problem, and improving the economy.
Israeli Ministers Say U.S.-Iran Peace Deal Does Not Bind Israel, Israel Will Not Abandon Conquered Territories
by
R. Cort Kirkwood
June 15, 2026
Top Israeli officials said not only that Israel is not bound by the U.S.-Iran peace pact to be signed on Friday, but also that it will not abandon the territories it has illegally seized in Gaza, Syria, and Lebanon.
The nation?s ministers of defense, finance, and national security denounced the agreement, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only warned that Israel will never permit Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
On Sunday, Israel struck targets in Lebanon, supposedly to respond to a Hezbollah attack on Israel.
Minister of National Security
In a 370-word jeremiad on X, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security, declared that Israel is ?not subject to the United States, and we are an independent and sovereign nation!?
Whether that means Israel will no longer fleece American taxpayers to the tune of more than $3 billion annually is unclear. But Ben-Gvir made clear his nation has no obligations to the United States, despite more than $300 billion in aid since 1946.?Our duty is to the citizens of Israel, to the soldiers of the IDF, and to the Jewish people, and our historical duty to the persecuted and murdered Jews over thousands of years of exile, to provide security to Jews in the Land of Israel,? Ben-Gvir fumed on X:
Every time we succumbed to international pressure at the expense of Israel?s security, we paid a blood price with interest. It was true in the Oslo Accords, it was true in the Lebanon agreement in 2006, and it was true in every period of containment in Gaza that exploded in our faces.
We emphasize: We love the USA and are grateful to President Trump. And yet, the State of Israel is not a banana republic.
Despite all that ?love,? for the ?USA,? Israel?s espionage here is ?critical? and ?unhinged,? a recent Pentagon report says.
?We are not partners to this agreement that does not ensure our security, and it does not bind us in any way,? Ben-Gvir continued:
We must not compromise on anything less than the dismantling of Hezbollah, we must not withdraw from any territory that our fighters have captured and cleared of terror infrastructure, we must not return to a situation where thousands of terrorists sit on the fences of northern settlements, and certainly we must not remain silent for a moment in the face of fire directed at the State of Israel. ?
The days are over when the Jew took blows and kept silent. Never again!
Minister of Defense
Israel Katz, minister of defense, unspooled an even longer screed about what Israel ?expects? of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Conceding that Israel and the United States enjoy a ?shared interest,? Katz wrote that ?Israel must ensure that in the future as well, we will have the ability to act independently to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to prepare accordingly.?
Beyond that, Israel will not withdraw from the territories it has conquered in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon, which Katz euphemistically called ?security zones.?
