The final act of the current drama will be the signing of the peace agreement between the United States and Iran. But just hours before U.S. President Donald Trump announced it, the State of Israel demonstrated that while it deeply respects its greatest friend and ally, it will never compromise on its own values or its inalienable right to self-defense.

While Iran threatened and the United States prepared to conclude the deal, Israeli fighter jets returned from another fearless operation in the skies over Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, after striking with surgical precision the building where a top Hezbollah terrorist was living.

The regime’s new strategy is to preserve its proxies for the next round of war. And if it is to sign a deal with Trump, then Hezbollah—or, translated into more acceptable diplomatic language, Lebanon—must also be part of the equation.

The IDF spokesman warned that while nothing was certain, public gatherings had been suspended as a precaution. Concerts were canceled, teachers’ unions announced that schools would remain closed, and although Ben-Gurion Airport continued operating, travelers were advised to check flight schedules carefully.

The crisis began as Trump announced what he hoped would become the day a peace deal was signed. At roughly the same time, the ayatollahs’ regime apparently ordered Hezbollah to fire into Israel, and three drones exploded over the northern Israeli town of Shlomi.

The torment of continuous bombardment has emptied the once-green and peaceful Galilee. Schools, sports halls and supermarkets have all become targets or stand deserted. Iran and Hezbollah knew full well that by aiming at civilians they would force Israel—regardless of how much it values its relationship with Trump—to decide whether to abandon a third of the country to the aggression of Shi’ite terrorism.

Certainly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has nothing to do with the proposed 60-day experimental arrangement, during which billions of dollars may flow into Iranian coffers. He may disagree with it, but he cannot prevent it. Those directing protests at the Israeli prime minister should instead address Trump. It would be foolish for Israel to rupture relations with its most important ally or indulge in public sulking.

But Trump cannot restrain Netanyahu either. Both the prime minister and Defense Minister Israel Katz have repeatedly made it clear that if Hezbollah fires into Israel—especially at civilians—Israel will strike Dahiyeh, Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut. And that is exactly what happened. Once again, Israel enforced its red lines.

Trump reacted much as expected, but without particularly harsh language, merely noting that this was supposed to be the day of “peace” and that Hezbollah’s attack had been relatively limited. Yet shortly beforehand, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said exactly the opposite: Israel has the right to defend itself.

But does Israel fear being left alone if Iran now attacks directly? Will it have to respond on its own?

In reality, there is no contradiction between the fundamental alliance with the United States and Israel’s ability to fight alone if necessary. It has happened before. On June 14 last year, some 200 Israeli fighter jets struck 100 military and nuclear sites, eliminating more than 20 of the regime’s senior leaders. Only afterward did the valuable American B-2 bombers arrive to destroy Fordow.

Israel knows that if it must fight alone—after having already broken through the barrier of direct confrontation with Iran on multiple occasions—it will ask no favors of anyone. At the same time, it knows that its strategic relationship with the United States remains exceptionally strong.

Israel has often faced enemies much larger and more powerful than itself throughout its history. Trump, meanwhile, is pursuing his own strategic objectives: resolving the issue of the Strait of Hormuz and postponing any final decision on enriched uranium for the next 60 days.

But those issues, like Lebanon itself, are directly connected to Israel and ultimately engage Trump’s own credibility, which in this case coincides with Israel’s right to self-defense. The negotiations are still far from over.

The Iranian regime, like many of its allies, has been badly weakened. The numbers tell the story: a devastated economy, a decimated leadership and an increasingly diminished military structure. What Iran still possesses in abundance is determination.

But that determination is inseparable from the regime’s ideological nature and its rejection of genuine peace. As the late historian Bernard Lewis argued, the Islamic Republic defines itself through permanent struggle against the West, driven by an extreme messianic worldview and animated by the expectation of the return of the Twelfth Imam. It does not merely prepare for war—it seeks it.

That is why the U.S.-Iran peace agreement is not simply naïve; it is dangerously misguided. Israel today is the only country that fully understands the nature of the regime it faces. The next 60 days may determine whether Trump and the rest of the world come to understand it as well.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday night to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon “with or without an agreement.”

“Iran will not have nuclear weapons. As long as I am prime minister of Israel, this will not happen,” the premier told reporters in his first press conference since U.S. President Donald Trump concluded his peace deal with the Islamic regime on Sunday.

Asked about reported disagreements with the Trump administration, Netanyahu said, “he is the U.S. president, I’m the Israeli prime minister—we often see eye to eye, and there are also instances where we see less eye to eye.”

Netanyahu said the “historic” joint U.S.-Israeli operation against Tehran “saved the State of Israel from the threat of nuclear annihilation.”

“All of us were exposed to that danger, and we pushed that threat back for years,” the Israeli leader said in his remarks. “Had we not acted, Iran would already have nuclear bombs.”

The weeks-long aerial campaign, which he described as the largest strike sortie in Israeli history, “crushed” Iran’s nuclear and missile programs and caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage, Netanyahu said, adding that “some estimate it at close to a trillion dollars.”

However, “the struggle is not over,” he added, noting ongoing threats in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip.

In Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces destroyed the overwhelming majority of missiles held by Hezbollah and took key positions from which the Iranian-backed terrorist army “threatened northern communities for years,” he went on to say.

“We broke the Iranian axis, the Iranian terror axis, and Hezbollah is a shadow of what it used to be,” Netanyahu declared.

The Jewish state is “stronger than ever” and will accomplish “many more great things,” including new alliances with “countries in the region,” according to the prime minister.

Trump said after concluding the memorandum of understanding with Iran on Sunday that any final agreement would allow Tehran to enrich uranium at low levels that “could never be used for military purposes.”

“They can never go beyond a certain amount,” he said in a phone call with The New York Times.

Trump further suggested that the new agreement grants the U.S. “strong policing powers” to ensure that Iran is not conducting nuclear work in violation of any of its commitments, the Times reported.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance told George Stephanopoulos on ABC‘s “Good Morning America” on Monday that the agreement negotiated by Trump was “performance-based” and contingent on the regime giving up its nuclear weapons program and stopping funding “terrorist activities all over the Middle East.”

Asked about Israeli concerns about the terms, the vice president declared it was “going to be a good deal for the people of Israel, for the people of the Gulf, the people of America and, again, potentially for the people of Iran as well.”

Is Trump’s deal with Iran worse than Obama’s JCPOA? Dan Schueftan tells Jonathan Sacerdoti how it emboldens every Iranian proxy from Hezbollah to the Houthis, and leaves Israel in one of the most precarious positions in its history.

Both sides are claiming victory. But beneath those claims are harder questions. Has Iran been given a free pass to rearm? Has Israel lost the cover it needed to act? What does this mean for the Gulf states, for Lebanon, for the Iranian people desperate to be rid of their regime — and for the West’s credibility as a civilisation willing to defend itself?

In this conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Dr. Dan Schueftan — strategic analyst and former director of the National Security Studies Center at the University of Haifa — about what the Trump-Iran deal actually contains, why a president who built his identity on winning may have handed Iran a historic victory, what Israel can still do alone, and why the West’s retreat from confrontation is the most dangerous signal it can send.

On the very day that the United States and Iran finalized a framework agreement to lift naval blockades, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and extend a temporary ceasefire, a parallel, starkly contrasting reality was unfolding in Israel’s Western Negev. While global markets celebrated falling energy prices and Asian stocks surged, Israeli policymakers confronted what the agreement dangerously abandoned. Signed on President Trump’s 80th birthday, this limited deal leaves Iran’s nuclear ambitions, ballistic missile program, and predatory proxy network unchecked – relegated to the convenient fiction of “future negotiations.”

For Israel, the Gulf States, and the free world, this agreement is a strategic catastrophe. By prioritizing short-term economic theater over long-term stability, the Western coalition has legitimized a hostile regime and thrown Tehran a critical financial lifeline. The immediate psychological fallout is a profound sense of regional isolation. At a moment when Jerusalem feels increasingly alone against existential threats, the message is unmistakable: the burden of survival falls squarely on Israel.

Yet, on that exact day of diplomatic abandonment, 35 ambassadors and senior diplomats from 17 nations chose to stand on the front lines of Israel’s recovery. They came to witness a brilliant, defiant contrast: how communities devastated by the October 7 atrocities are actively refusing to drown in trauma, transforming a scarred frontier into a global, live-sandboxed laboratory for human and technological resilience.

Organized in partnership with the American Jewish Committee (AJC), the delegation’s journey moved these foreign dignitaries from passive empathy to hard, transactional engagement. At Kibbutz Nahal Oz, Kfar Aza, and Kibbutz Or Haner, they encountered the raw human friction of a shattered civilian border, walking through the hollowed remnants of the Young Adults’ Neighborhood to examine the immense operational gaps between high-level policy and real-world execution.

However, the visit was never intended to end with grief. The afternoon seamlessly flipped the narrative into a vision of high-stakes international opportunity at Hamitbah, the pioneering innovation hub of the Western Negev Innovation Authority, hosted at the SouthUp incubator in Kibbutz Nir Am.

Cutting straight through the traditional language of crisis and victimhood, David (Dudi) Gabay, CEO of Hamitbah, laid out the hub’s core philosophy: “We took those challenges and built innovation verticals that address them directly. We are not going to let this region shut down. We are going to make the machine work again.”

Gabay forcefully pivoted the room toward a future horizon:

“Instead of going deep into trauma, how do we turn that coin into a completely different process? We call startup companies from all over Israel to bring their ideas here… and from that, we help them scale their products both in Israel and abroad. Because in this region, hope is much more than a feeling; hope is a destiny.”

Following this macro vision, Aviv Ratzman delivered the operational blueprint, anchoring Hamitbah’s six specialized tech clusters; AgroTech, ResilienceTech, EnergyTech, ConnectivityTech, DefenseTech, and BuildTech – directly into the hard realities of the field. Aviv focused heavily on modernizing global reconstruction through advanced BuildTech (ConTech), using sharp “Innovation Diplomacy” to reframe regional trauma as a strategic asset. “For us as innovation people, we like very complicated challenges because that is where you bring innovation,” Ratzman noted. “When we have challenges, actually we start to have fun.”

To ground this philosophy, Ratzman confronted the systemic vulnerabilities exposed during the October 7 assault, particularly the infrastructure collapse. “Civilians tried to reach emergency services, but lines were completely jammed. Even emergency teams struggled to communicate with one another,” he explained.

Using this critical communications failure as the foundation for the ConnectivityTech cluster, Ratzman strategically broadened the scope for the dignitaries. These telecommunication challenges extend far beyond emergency security; they cause massive logjams in daily agriculture, healthcare, and regional logistics. By deploying rugged, decentralized communications to bridge these gaps, the Western Negev Innovation Authority is transforming the region into an integrated “Smart Region”- offering battle-tested solutions that can directly optimize the “Smart City” initiatives of the ambassadors’ home countries.

These precise, on-ground friction points address the severe, macroeconomic bottlenecks currently confronting the global market. While advanced tech economies like South Korea and Singapore face crippling domestic construction labor deficits, nations like Poland operate as massive logistical launchpads tasked with the rapid rebuilding of Ukraine. Simultaneously, countries like Norway and Denmark struggle under rigid mandates to eliminate concrete carbon footprints, while rapidly urbanizing nations like Vietnam face extreme climate vulnerability from rising sea levels, and island economies like Fiji and Malawi find their infrastructure routinely leveled by cyclones.

By utilizing the Western Negev as a sovereign testing ground, Hamitbah’s clusters are providing the answers. The ambassadors witnessed advanced automated machinery, remote-operated cranes, and Physical AI designed to eliminate logistics waste and protect human life. Among the innovations are circular-economy startups that literally scoop up war rubble and recycle it into sustainable, cement-free building blocks. Ratzman framed this as a global pitch: “We are not developing just for this region. Every big challenge you solve here is an opportunity to take a new product all over the world.”

The atmosphere inside Hamitbah shifted rapidly from observation to an active bilateral business exchange. “How are you funded?” one ambassador asked.

Gabay’s response highlighted their public-private-partnership model: “We are part of the government – basically, we are the innovation authority here in the Western Negev. So a good part of the funds come from the government. But we have partners here – industry, startups, academia. We gather capital from all sectors.” Gabay instantly leveraged the moment to deliver a direct Business-to-Government (B2G) pitch: “You asked a very smart question because part of this conversation is to initiate communication… and maybe we can work together on your challenges as well. That can be a part of the funding.”

When another diplomat asked whether Hamitbah already operates B2G frameworks abroad, the team explained their definitive model: they identify challenges on the ground, develop proof-of-concept (POC) projects in their sandbox environment, and scale those vetted startups into international markets. The model resonated immediately. During a discussion with the Sri Lankan Ambassador regarding South Asian infrastructure, the door opened for immediate technology transfer to solve productivity gaps in fragile economies.

This encounter marks my own professional and strategic transition into this arena, shifting away from standard geopolitical Hasbara (public diplomacy) and traditional philanthropy toward actionable impact investments and industrial alliances. Innovation is not a donation. The Western Negev is no longer accepting the passive handouts of global goodwill. Through the Western Negev Innovation Authority, we are providing an asymmetrical advantage, commercial opportunities, and high-value global partnerships.

As David Gabay cleanly summarized to the ambassadors at the close of the session: “We really appreciate you coming here, and hopefully, we can communicate and build a business together.”

The Western coalition may choose to sign short-sighted deals that isolate Israel on paper, but the free world cannot afford to isolate the Western Negev. We are no longer just Israel’s frontline of defense. Armed with world-class innovation, we are the world’s frontline for rebuilding the future.

Noam Bedein is a professional travel photojournalist and Head of International Relations for the Western Negev Innovation Authority (Hamitbah), specializing in driving global business-to-government (B2G) partnerships and scalable impact investments born from real-world resilience