For weeks, Israelis have lamented the uncertainty and volatility of the on-again, off-again conflict with Iran. As the United States and Iran shift from talks to threats and strikes in the Persian Gulf, Israel has so far sat on the sidelines, stuck in a kind of limbo.
Israeli civilians are worried they could find themselves stuck abroad if they leave over the summer, or back in bomb shelters if war breaks out again. After its onslaught against Iran ended with a nominal cease-fire, the military, already embroiled in Lebanon and Gaza, does not know what to plan for.
That uncertainty — a constant tension that shows no sign of resolving — is an uncomfortable place for the country to be. Polls show that Israelis feel less secure now than they did before the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran in February.
But for many in Israel, that may be better than the alternatives.
The difficulty for Israel is that its own goals and those of the Trump administration are not aligned. President Trump has made clear that his main and most immediate objective is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic unimpeded by Iran. Even at his most bellicose, Mr. Trump has maintained that the current U.S. attacks on Iran are meant not to re-escalate the conflict, but to force Iran back to the bargaining table.
For Israel, however, a U.S.-Iran agreement has become something to fear, given the contours of and omissions from the memorandum of understanding that the two adversaries agreed to in June.
That document, as Israeli officials noted with great concern, said nothing about Iran’s ballistic-missile arsenal or about its support of proxy armies in the region, both of which Israel considers major threats. It promised to release billions of dollars to Iran that Israel fears Tehran would use to support both of those threats. And it postponed talks on how Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon would be prevented.
Israelis hold out little hope that another deal between Mr. Trump and Iran would turn out much better.
“If you ask me, no negotiations is much better than bad negotiations,” said Jacob Nagel, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is now a fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a think thank that is hawkish on Iran.
Moreover, whatever such a possible deal’s flaws, it would be Israel that has to live with those shortcomings, said Shira Efron, an Israeli analyst at RAND. “An agreement will tie Israel’s hands and prevent freedom of action, which is what Israel fears most,” she said. “Iran threatens Israel in a way that it doesn’t threaten the U.S.”
If a new U.S.-Iran deal is the worst likely scenario in Israelis’ eyes, a return to full-blown conflict is widely seen as preferable to many military and government officials.
Israel has murmured with “Finish the job” rhetoric since the cease-fire with Iran in April, when Israel was stopped from striking Iranian energy infrastructure and other targets in ways that could have crippled the country’s economy and, many Israelis believe, pushed the Islamic Republic closer to the brink of collapse.
“Everybody in the defense establishment and the government is rooting for another shot,” said Nimrod Novik, who was an adviser to former Prime Minister Shimon Peres and now is a fellow of the Israel Policy Forum, a New York-based research group.
“There’s an old I.D.F. slogan — just one more hill, and victory is assured,” he said, adding that this rarely proved to be the case.
The public, too, he said, would tolerate more incoming missile sirens and disruption of daily life if the mission that it had been sold in the first place — an end to the threat that Iran poses — could be achieved.
Still, he and other analysts noted that war would come at great cost to Israel in economic terms. And airstrikes targeting Iranian infrastructure and industry would likely harm Iranian civilians, in the end, more than their government.
“The problem is that I’m not sure of the meaning of ‘Finish the job,’” said Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran program at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv.
Targeting Iranian industry would not address the problem of its nuclear program, Mr. Zimmt said. The only other way he could see a return to war benefiting Israel, he said, was if the United States agreed to a ground-forces operation to seize Iranian uranium held in underground compounds — a brazen scenario that no one suggests is likely anytime soon.
Largely absent from the political conversation about a resumption of war is Mr. Netanyahu. Analysts called that a tacit acknowledgment that Israel cannot afford to be seen internationally as pushing for war, given the widespread perception that the prime minister dragged Mr. Trump into the conflict in the first place.
All of which leaves the least-worst scenario as the waiting game in which Israel finds itself now.
Tension and uncertainty are preferable to a raging conflict, after all. The skirmishes between the United States and Iran have been short-lived and relatively pain-free, Mr. Nagel said.
“It lasts two hours, and the day after, everyone is saying ‘I won,’” he said. And in the meantime, he added, “it’s preventing them from going into a negotiating room.”
Waiting also allows Israel to rearm, while keeping its head down.
For those rooting for war, the simmering friction still has the potential to boil over, particularly if Iran were to miscalculate and strike Israel, or if it were to hit a U.S. warship in response to the American blockade of the Gulf. “The question everybody is asking is when will the one mistake take place that triggers a more massive escalation?” Mr. Novik said.
On Tuesday, Mr. Netanyahu said Israel was ready for anything.
“I will say this to the leaders of Iran: Do not count on it being quiet if you attack us,” he warned at a conference in Dimona, a city in southern Israel that was struck by Iranian missiles in March. “Do not count on a rerun. Because it will not be a rerun, and that was already powerful enough. This will be a different event, much more powerful.”
But the waiting game also may hold unseen perils for Israel.
While Iran and the United States attack each other with missiles, drones and bombast, Iran could be pushing ahead with its nuclear project undetected, said Danny Citrinowicz, a retired Israeli military intelligence officer who specializes in Iran.
With International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors still barred from Iran, Israel is dependent on its intelligence services’ penetration of Iran for information about its intentions, he said, and “some days you have it, some days you don’t have it.”
Mr. Citrinowicz, sounding what appears to be a minority view among Israeli officialdom, said Israel’s best hope was an agreement that blocked any path for Iran toward a bomb.
“But this current government is not interested in that,” he said. “They’re interested in leaving Iran as a threat, and leaving the possibility of a return to war.”
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