Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to halt the latest round of clashes with Iran following pressure from President Trump prompted criticism and mockery from the Israeli leader’s political rivals, and some expressions of concern from his allies.
After speaking by phone with Mr. Trump on Monday, Mr. Netanyahu ordered the Israeli military to suspend plans for a new attack on Iran a short time later, according to multiple U.S. and Israeli officials briefed on the call.
That disclosure prompted Gadi Eisenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israeli military and now a member of Parliament, to post a new campaign ad on social media. In the clip, Mr. Trump’s voice is heard saying several times of Mr. Netanyahu, “He’ll do whatever I want him to do.”
Israel is scheduled to hold elections later this year, and Mr. Eisenkot surpassed Mr. Netanyahu in one recent poll as Israelis’ top choice for prime minister. “The U.S. has a leader,” a tagline in Mr. Eisenkot’s ad says. “Israel has no leader. That’s all the difference.”
Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister who is challenging Mr. Netanyahu for the post, released a video statement saying that “the past 24 hours will be remembered as the beginning of normalizing a reality of drip-by-drip attacks from Iran.” He added that Mr. Netanyahu was “not capable of making a decision on any front — not in Gaza, not in Lebanon, and not in Iran.”
Dan Illouz, a member of Parliament from Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party, made a similar argument, albeit more obliquely. In a statement on social media, he said that Mr. Netanyahu’s government had totally relinquished the ability to act decisively against threats from Iran and in Lebanon, where the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia has been launching attacks against Israel.
Mr. Illouz argued that Israel was effectively being prevented from striking Dahiya, a Hezbollah stronghold on the outskirts of Beirut, unless the group attacked major Israeli cities. That leaves the country without an adequate answer to Hezbollah attacks on smaller communities in northern Israel, he said.
“We’re refraining from using the only offensive tool we have to deter the enemy,” he said.
