Israel's Answer to the Iran Deal

A disappointing agreement with Iran is unlikely to change the way Israelis think, fight, or prepare for what comes next.

photo: Levi Meir Clancy/Unsplash

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This is a guest essay by Vanessa Berg, who writes about Judaism and Israel.

You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.

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For Israelis, the most unsettling part of international diplomacy is often not what is known, but what is unknown.

If the United States and Iran have indeed reached a Memorandum of Understanding to end the recent conflict, many Israelis will immediately ask the same question: What exactly was traded away?

At the outset of the war, Israel’s objectives were ambitious. Public discussion focused not merely on stopping an immediate threat, but on fundamentally altering the strategic equation that has defined the Middle East for decades: Iran’s nuclear ambitions, its ballistic missile program, its sponsorship of terror proxies, and even the survival of the regime itself.

If a negotiated agreement leaves much of that architecture intact, disappointment in Israel is inevitable — but disappointment should not be confused with defeat.

History suggests that Israelis respond to strategic setbacks differently than most nations. They rarely view unfavorable circumstances as permanent realities. Instead, they treat them as problems to be solved.

That tendency is rooted in three deeply ingrained characteristics of Israeli society.

1) The Refusal to Be a Frier

Few concepts are more central to Israeli culture than the idea of not being a “frier” (פראייר), which has roots in Yiddish, where it was used to describe someone gullible or easily deceived.

A frier is a sucker — someone who gets taken advantage of, someone who trusts too much, waits too long, or allows others to determine his fate. Israelis despise being a frier.

This cultural instinct was forged through generations of experience. Time and again, Israelis have learned that promises made in international forums often dissolve when confronted with geopolitical realities. Security guarantees can change. Administrations come and go. Alliances shift.

As a result, Israelis tend to view international agreements as useful but insufficient. Even if a U.S.-Iran agreement reduces tensions temporarily, few Israelis will assume the problem has disappeared. Instead, they will ask what comes next.

The likely response will not be resignation but adaptation. Israel will almost certainly deepen intelligence collection, expand cyber capabilities, accelerate technological innovation, strengthen regional partnerships, and refine military options. Every gap left by diplomacy will become a challenge to overcome through ingenuity and preparation.

The question many Israelis will ask is not whether the agreement solves the problem, but whether they would be fools to assume it does. And Israelis have spent decades proving they have little interest in playing that role.

I’m reminded of the beginnings of Iron Dome, once considered a world-class miracle and today par for the Israeli course. In the early 1990s, Mordechai Yosepov immigrated to Israel from Uzbekistan. On a summer morning in 2004, Yosepov waited for a cousin who was dropping off his grandson at kindergarten in Sderot (one kilometer from the Gaza border), when an explosion suddenly occurred.

The impact of a Hamas rocket left a pothole the size of a large frying pan in the middle of the asphalt street in front of the Lilach Preschool in a neighborhood of low-rise apartment buildings. Metal shards sliced through the bodies of 3-year-old Afik Zahavi, and his mother, Ruthie, as they walked toward the school at about 8 a.m. Afik died on his way to the hospital, while Ruthie survived to tell the story.

Ilanit’s 49-year-old grandfather and the 3-year-old Afik were the first victims of rockets fired at Israel by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. Their deaths prompted the Israeli government to undertake a project that would result in an innovative missile defense system known today as the Iron Dome.

Israelis refused to be suckers at the invitation of Hamas. They acted to change the reality, and they will approach the Iranian threat with that same determination.

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2) Israeli Optimism

To outsiders, Israelis often appear surprisingly optimistic for people living in one of the world’s most volatile neighborhoods. Their optimism is not naïve. It is earned.

Since 1948, Israel has fought multiple wars, absorbed waves of terrorism, endured economic crises, survived diplomatic isolation, and repeatedly confronted threats that many observers believed could overwhelm the country. Yet Israel remains. Every generation of Israelis grows up surrounded by examples of seemingly impossible obstacles that were ultimately overcome.

No individual embodied this mindset more than the late, great Israeli statesman Shimon Peres. In his book, “No Room for Small Dreams,” Peres described Israeli optimism not as wishful thinking but as a practical framework for confronting reality. He identified three essential ingredients: creative thinking, courage to take responsibility, and determination.

Israel was born through unconventional solutions to unconventional problems. The country’s founders inherited swamps, deserts, scarce resources, hostile neighbors, and almost no margin for error. Conventional thinking was a luxury they could not afford. When malaria-infested swamps threatened early settlements, pioneers imported eucalyptus trees from Australia to absorb excess water.

Even the famous Israeli concept of balagan (a perpetual state of disorder) often serves as an incubator for creativity. In a society where structure is frequently imperfect, people learn to improvise, adapt, and invent. If a diplomatic agreement creates new constraints, Israelis will not simply accept those constraints. They will begin searching for unconventional ways around them. That has always been their instinct.

Israeli culture often assumes that if something needs to be done, someone must step forward and do it. This tendency can be seen throughout Israeli society. It is visible in the startup ecosystem, which consistently ranks among the world’s most innovative. It is visible in the military, where junior personnel are expected to exercise initiative rather than blindly follow procedure. It is visible in youth movements such as the Israeli Scouts, where young people are given unusually high levels of responsibility from an early age.

The result is a culture that rarely waits for perfect conditions. Israelis may complain. They may argue endlessly. They may disagree about strategy. But when confronted with a challenge, they generally assume that responsibility ultimately rests with them.

Few stories better capture Israeli persistence than Peres’ efforts to secure what would become the foundation of Israel’s nuclear program.

In 1956, while serving as Director General of Israel’s Ministry of Defense, Peres helped coordinate the Sinai Campaign. During meetings with French officials, he seized an opportunity that most would have considered impossible: persuading France to help Israel establish a nuclear-energy program. To his surprise, the French agreed.

But turning that agreement into reality proved far more difficult. The proposal faced opposition from Israeli leaders, concerns from the United States, and intense scrutiny from the Soviet Union. Then, just as a final agreement was within reach in September 1957, the French government began collapsing.

After years of negotiations, all that remained was the approval of France’s political leadership. Peres rushed from office to office, persuading skeptical officials and scrambling to secure the necessary signatures before the government fell. As the crisis deepened, even David Ben-Gurion concluded that Peres’ mission was likely “for naught.” He was wrong.

Peres managed to secure the outgoing prime minister’s approval at the very last moment. Although the government had effectively fallen, the agreement was purposefully signed and dated the day before its collapse, clearing the way for French assistance. With that signature, the seed of Israel’s nuclear program was planted.

Years later, Peres reflected on the episode with characteristic pragmatism: “This date or that, what does it matter?” he said. “Of what significance is that between friends?”

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3) A Blessing in Disguise

There is another possibility that many Israelis will quietly recognize: If the agreement proves disappointing, it may ultimately strengthen Israel’s strategic independence.

For decades, Israel has enjoyed extraordinary support from the United States. That partnership remains invaluable. But recent events have reinforced a lesson many Israelis already understood: Allies have interests, not obligations.

American administrations change. American priorities change. American voters change. And American foreign policy changes with them. Israel’s long-term security therefore cannot rest exclusively on the assumption that Washington will always share Jerusalem’s threat perceptions or strategic timetable.

A disappointing agreement could accelerate efforts to diversify Israel’s relationships around the world, deepen regional partnerships, expand independent capabilities, and reduce reliance on any single foreign actor.

History suggests that periods of strategic discomfort often force nations to become stronger. Israel’s history, perhaps more than any other country, is filled with examples of adversity becoming an unexpected source of resilience. The irony may be that an agreement intended to restrain Israel ultimately pushes it toward greater self-reliance.

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Many observers will interpret a U.S.-Iran agreement through the lens of diplomacy. Israelis are more likely to interpret it through the lens of adaptation. They have spent generations navigating realities they did not choose.

That does not mean they welcome unfavorable outcomes. It means they do not allow unfavorable outcomes to define them.

The agreement may alter the strategic landscape. It may delay certain objectives. It may create new challenges. But it is unlikely to change the fundamental character of a society that has repeatedly transformed setbacks into opportunities.

Israelis are not ones to feel bad for themselves — they’re probably already figuring out how to get Iran’s uranium, at the very least.

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