Every morning I watch two countries grieve in two languages. On Iran International, in Persian, the talk is of betrayal. On Israeli television, in Hebrew, the word is the same one: hifkiru — they abandoned us, they left us to our fate. The United States and Iran are signing a memorandum of understanding this week in Switzerland, and on both sides of a war that has only just ended, the people who most wanted that regime gone feel that a deal was cut over their heads.

The Israeli disappointment is real, and it is justified. Israel is not a party to the agreement. The text demands nothing on its behalf, even though the fighting in the north has not fully stopped. After nearly four months of war — a war that opened with strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, that cost Israeli lives and emptied Israeli shelters — Washington has chosen to end it on terms that leave Tehran’s rulers standing, their assets unfrozen, their sanctions lifting, their sheer survival rebranded as diplomacy.

But before we sink any deeper into that word, abandoned, I want Israelis to look at what this same deal means........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)