Yossi Schwartz ISL (RCIT section in Israel/Occupied Palestine) 28.07.2026
The truce in the fighting in the Gulf endures due to the lack of choice of American imperialism, whose interceptions are few; Mediation efforts between the United States and Iran continue, after 13 days of US airstrikes in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump ordered the U.S. military to halt the attacks last Friday, to facilitate Oman’s mediation efforts.
Iran, for its part, announced that it had suspended its response attacks against American bases in the countries of the region, following the cessation of American attacks.
In the meantime, Omani mediation continued to formulate a formula for the passage of commercial ships. In the background, Qatar is also assisting the efforts. However, the gaps between the sides are large and key issues remain in dispute – first and foremost the scope of the powers that will be granted to Iran, its status in managing the Strait of Hormuz, and the continued use of the southern route.
Trump believes that only a real threat to the regime’s stability will make Tehran flexible. Until it changes again, the Iranian regime does not change its policy voluntarily, but only when the price becomes unbearable. This is the situation in the United States. As the war continues, the Revolutionary Guards are the focus of power in Iran.
As far as the Revolutionary Guards are concerned, any future agreement will deal not only with the nuclear program, but also with the ballistic missile system, on all regional fronts, the Strait of Hormuz, and their status within the country. Therefore, they want to come to any negotiation with the most leverage in their hands.
The Strait of Hormuz is, and rightly so, in the eyes of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most important strategic asset. By threatening freedom of navigation and global energy supplies, Tehran can exert pressure not only on the United States, but also on Europe, China, Japan, and other oil-dependent capitalist economies from the Gulf. For this reason, China – through Pakistan – and Oman are working to prevent further deterioration.
Iran is also exerting pressure through the Houthis in the Red Sea. They announced the imposition of a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia and attacked Saudi vessels.
The longer the conflict drags on, the more difficult it will be for the Trump regime to simultaneously manage the growing security, economic, and social crisis – to the point of a reasonable possibility that the Trump regime will collapse into itself as early as the midterm elections.
Washington no longer relies on Israel but seeks to build a broader regional system that will also include Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Turkey, the Gulf states, and Egypt.
It does not appear that Netanyahu’ s visit to Washington and his meeting with Trump tomorrow will bear fruit, as the White House sees Netanyahu as the cause of the United States’ entanglement in a war from which it does not know how to get out.
Netanyahu has other options to heat up the arena in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and especially in the West Bank. He will argue that in such a dangerous security situation, the elections should be postponed.
In 2012, Benito Netanyahu gave his famous speech to the UN General Assembly with a picture of the bomb, in which he warned the world about the Iranian nuclear program. And in those days, Iran was infinitely farther away from a nuclear bomb than it is today. It narrowed the gap solely because of the war initiated by Netanyahu. Iran is now a nuclear threshold state solely because it persuaded Trump in 2018 to withdraw from Obama’s nuclear deal. Iran has been careful to abide by this agreement as it is written, and therefore it has limited its uranium enrichment to low levels that do not allow the production of fissile material essential for nuclear weapons. With his withdrawal from the agreement, Trump freed Iran, which had continued to adhere to the dead agreement for another year, to enrich uranium to military levels.
The fact that it is still a nuclear threshold state, even though Netanyahu has already sworn twice to the Israeli public that he has eliminated the Iranian nuclear threat for generations — after the “People are lions” and again after the “lion’s roar” — proves that Netanyahu simply lied to Israelis with a determined forehead about the results of the two wars he initiated against Iran over the past year. Hence, most of the public’s support for another large-scale Israeli attack on Iran reflects the character of the Israeli public as colonialists, the result of repression, blindness, and voluntary ignorance. If there is another round, Netanyahu will declare that Israel has finally eliminated the nuclear threat, this time on Mount Machosh, and a few months later, if he is still in power, he will announce that Iran is once again on the verge of assembling an atomic bomb.
Or maybe he will tell the public that we want to live and that Iran has already assembled an atomic bomb, or two, or ten. His consistent lies prove that he may say so without any connection to reality. Whether Iran does assemble an atomic bomb or a dozen bombs, or none, he will tell. And the public that believes it on the issue of Iran and ignores its lies will believe again and will support any war action it decides on. After all, when Netanyahu claims that without him millions of Israelis would have perished in a nuclear holocaust, many in the public believe him and thank him.
They will agree that in order to live, it is worth postponing elections. It’s all a few months. pikuach nefesh, etc. Will the Zionist opposition dare to say no to attack? It is more likely that the Promised Attack will be better. But the Iranian nuclear program is not just a disgraceful failure of Netanyahu. It is also a diversionary exercise that ensures the success of his life’s work: the prevention of a Palestinian state of any shape and size.
Netanyahu reserved the means to secure his rule until the end of his term: a third intifada in the West Bank. Netanyahu is doing everything in his power to push the Palestinians to launch an uprising that he hopes to crush in a bloodbath. The Palestinians are building defense committees that must build national leadership able to direct the uprising
In contrast to Iran and the regime coup (which also serves in this context as a distraction and even encourages occupation and apartheid), given that the leaders of the so-called opposition support Israel’s crimes in the West Bank, not only is Israeli crime in the West Bank barely covered in the mainstream media, but it is also supported by the same Supreme Court that is guarded by opponents of the regime coup and whose judges prohibit those who accuse Israel of apartheid from entering Israel. The Israeli public that supports all of this will not change even if Netanyahu is overthrown. Only a major defeat or the Arab revolution will change the consciousness of Israelis and bring about a solution of a socialist and democratic Palestinian state from the river to the sea.