UPDATED – The Israeli prime minister said his country’s goals in Iran will be achieved by “agreement or by renewing the war.” Meanwhile, Iran says the U.S. and Israel have repeatedly violated the ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, (DoD, Jack Sanders)
Adds Israeli opposition leader’s comments, new Lebanon dead and wounded.
By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the two-week truce is not “the end of the war” but a “stop on the way to achieving all our goals.”
Netanyahu claimed that Iran “entered the talks beaten and weaker than ever,” while boasting that Israel is “stronger than ever.” He vowed that “there are still goals to be achieved” and Israel will achieve them “either by agreement or by renewing the war.”
According to Iran, Israel and the U.S. have already renewed the war. Tehran said it is preparing a “crushing response” to what it said were repeated violations of the truce.
“The U.S. and Israeli regimes have repeatedly violated the cease-fire,” the government-run Tehran Times said on X. “They should wait for Iran’s crushing response.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the U.S. must choose between the ceasefire or permitting Israel to continue its slaughter in Lebanon.
“The Iran–U.S. cease-fire terms are clear and explicit: The U.S. must choose – ceasefire or continued war via Israel. It cannot have both,” he said on X. “The world sees the massacres in Lebanon. The ball is in the U.S. court, and the world is watching whether it will act on its commitments.”
Araghchi posted the Pakistani prime minister’s statement saying Lebanon was part of the ceasefire.
But Netanyahu disagreed. Israel killed 182 people and wounded more than 900 in Lebanon on Wednesday in the IDF’s biggest bombardment of the country since March 2.
Trump told PBS “everyone knows” Lebanon is not part of ceasefire. “Yeah, they were not included in the deal,” Trump said. “They were not included in the deal. That’ll get taken care of, too. It’s alright.”
He said it is “part of the deal – everyone knows that” for Israel to continue its war on Lebanon. “That’s a separate skirmish. Okay?”
Egypt called Israel’s continued attacks on Lebanon a “premeditated intent” to sabotage the truce with Iran, Reuters reported.
Tehran says it is ready to bomb Israel again if Tel Aviv’s attacks on Lebanon don’t stop. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander said Iran is readying “a major response” to “the Zionist entity’s brutal crimes in Lebanon” and that the response to will be “severe.”
Meanwhile, Yair Lapid, the Israeli opposition leader who would face Netanyahu in the next election, called the two-week ceasefire with Iran a “political disaster of unseen proportions.”
He said Israel “had no say in the agreement the United States and Iran signed last night,” and that Netanyahu “has turned us into a client state that receives instructions by phone on issues that concern the core of our national security.”
“For three years now, Israeli citizens have been paying an unbearable price for Netanyahu’s failures, dragging Israel from one disaster to another,” Lapid said at a press conference.
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Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other newspapers, including The Montreal Gazette, the London Daily Mail and The Star of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London, a financial reporter for Bloomberg News and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for The New York Times. He is the author of two books, A Political Odyssey, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and How I Lost By Hillary Clinton, foreword by Julian Assange.
It does not matter who is the client state – US or Israel – as long as the US arms and pays Israel, it is the US responsibility to STOP doing that. As long as the Israel Lobby controls the US government, it is the responsibility of US VOTERS to rein in the crazies and elect NEW anti-zionist representatives.
Until then, the resistance to Israel’s threats to humanity has every right to destroy Israel and take down the US. Oil dependence is no excuse! nor is stock market gambling, and frankly, over-dependence on artificial fertilizers and squandering clean water sources are problems of our own making.
The problem here is, Israel does whatever Israel wants to do… genocide, ethnic cleansing, mass murder, crimes against humanity, deliberate ecological destruction, and ‘The West’ does nothing to stop it.
By doing nothing to stop it, The West’, namely, the U.S, Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Australia has emboldened Netanyahu, to continue with his Greater Israel project. ‘The West’ has given Israel, and its criminal Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu a carte blanche, to conduct his agenda, and Israel’s agenda of hegemony in the Middle East
The USrael is agreement adverse. Any ‘ceasefire’ is literally a pause to re-arm, re-group and attack again and again.
The ME needs to be cleansed of the USrael disease – and that includes vassals, the western hemorrhoid regimes.
When warmongers speak…
Why is it that the US always bows to Israel? I thought we were supposed to stand for more than being a puppet for a bunch of modern savages who have a terribly self-inflated image of themselves, and who have been using us as their puppet for nearly a century. Enough is Enough!
And, trumples, keep your filthy, bloody hands off Medicare and other beneficial social programs!
Real rather than Reel, is NOT Pessimism, but then it is NOT Cognitive Dissonance
What does Netanyahu’s statement: “agreement or by renewing the war” mean in his mind? The crucially critical word is ‘Agreement’.
Any perspective that does not agree with his intentions, is ‘disagreement’.
Like his coconspirator Trump, he is afflicted with the now obviously unhinged derangement of his narcissism, wherein the “Unhinged derangement of his narcissism” refers to a state where an individual with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) has lost control of their typical ego-defense mechanisms, resulting in extreme, irrational, and often explosive behavior. This phrase describes a situation where the narcissist’s grandiosity and warped reality have completely collapsed under the pressure of criticism, rejection, or failure, leading to a state of psychotic-like rage” and is obvious to the global public.
If the following understated definition does not accurately identify these two maniacs, then no mere linguistic terminology will ever be adequate to remove them from office. It is way too late to undo the apocalyptically catastrophic damage they have imposed on so-called civilization:
“Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a mental health condition characterized by a long-term pattern of grandiosity, an intense need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for others. Individuals with NPD often possess an inflated sense of self-importance, feel entitled, and may be exploitative in relationships. Mayo Clinic +4”
The Trump proclaimed ceasefire is nothing more than a tool to favorably manipulate stock market price indexes. ‘Premeditated market manipulation’ (PMM) is the intentional, planned interference with ‘free market forces’ – purportedly the unhindered interactions of supply and demand that determine prices, production, and distribution without government intervention.
In living reality, rather than ideals, fantasies, or abstract notions, PMM is driven by self-interest, suppressing competition and the profit motive, – herein, the covert lie; double-dealing and fraud, where the social profit motive is of least concern – these forces do NOT allow voluntary exchanges to efficiently allocate resources, incentivize innovation, and respond rapidly to consumer demand. Corporate Finance Institute +4.
They artificially affect security prices for illicit gain. These illegal acts, involving deception and/or fraud, include methods like pump-and-dump schemes, spoofing, and spreading false information aiming to create false impressions of demand or supply. Investor.gov +3. It immediately pushes prices higher, after their slight drop, in reaction to the Trump announced cessation of killing: – AI detailed data, paraphrased.
BBC Headline 04/09/26: Oil prices rise as concerns grow over ‘fragile’ US-Iran ceasefire.
Crude prices have reversed from sharp falls on Wednesday when plans to pause the war first emerged
“For three years now, Israeli citizens have been paying an unbearable price for Netanyahu’s failures, dragging Israel from one disaster to another,” Lapid said at a press conference.
I don’t buy that; or maybe the opposition leader is not reading the results of opinion polling being carried out in Israel.
Mondoweiss, Feb 27, 2026:
“… polls conducted throughout the genocide in Gaza indicated a consistent general trend in Jewish Israeli society.
About 4 out of 5 Jewish Israelis supported genocide in various formulations, from the 79% not concerned with starvation in Gaza (August 2025), to the over 75% opining that there are “no innocents in Gaza” (June 2025), and to the 82% supporting the total expulsion of Gaza’s residents (May 2025).
…
… the leader of the only “leftist” party in the Zionist spectrum, Yair Golan, advocated in December 2023 for starving Gaza’s population. “We’d all like to wake up one spring morning and find that 7 million Palestinians who live between the sea and the river have simply disappeared,” Golan said in 2025.”
[https://mondoweiss.net/2026/02/new-israeli-poll-shows-young-jewish-voters-most-right-wing-fanatically-religious-and-pro-genocide-in-israeli-history/?utm_source=chatgpt.com ]
According to Mondoweiss the polls are so damning that they subtitled the article, “Nine out of ten Israelis are genocidal.”
So what are Netanyahu’s failures that Lapid said Israeli citizens are disgruntled about?
Perhaps not being brutal enough?
‘israeli’ channel 12 made the polls, says the article from your link.
You know that there is often much room for manipulation, regarding how the polls where made and counted.
Do you really think, bibi and his evil ilk would want/ allow poll results criticizing the current mass murdering regime?
I find Netanyahu and his crew to be extremely repulsive.
Donald Trump is a pathological liar. These ‘negotiations’ are as much noise as the diplomacy with Russia over the Ukraine conflict.
The zionist colonists always violate ceasefires and deny it.
What happened to Lebanon several hours ago is beyond debased and grotesque. It was the worst massacre the Jewish supremacists have inflicted in many mos. Hospitals, apartments, schools, and other civilian infrastructure in high density cities were annihilated. Doctors in Beruit ERs are reporting that the scenes are total blooebaths.
The Jewish supremacists in Israhell have gone berserk with paranoia and sadism and are totally agreement incapable.
Somebody somewhere, some entity or organization, must somehow corral them or they could possibly kill us all.
Make no mistake, if you or your children or your friends stood in the way of what the parasitic Jewish supremacists happenned to covet, they would slice all their throats and feel no compunction!
As much as I agree with you- kindly do not forget that these monstrous criminals are just pretending to be religious/ jewish.
jewsdemandaction dot org
We’ve seen it so often in today’s world and throughout our history. When leaders behave as though they are deprived of common sense and basic goodwill, their misjudgments never remain contained — they spill outward, unsettling the lives and wellbeing of many. Leadership without sound insight inevitably fuels conflict, distorts truth, and erodes the trust that holds societies together. This is why true leadership requires men and women who are humble, reflective, and genuinely committed to the wellbeing of others. Without these qualities, leadership becomes a source of turmoil instead of protection. We are witnessing, across the wider world, just how easily chaos and confusion arise when self?interest is allowed to overshadow the common good, loosening the very threads that hold societies together. And still, across generations, we have yet to learn the lessons of the past that could guide us differently.
With appreciation to the author.
When was the last time that Israel adhered to a ceasefire agreement? I can’t remember it either.
@ Rob – Good point.
The Empire of the Free World does not keep cease-fires. Donbas … Gaza … Lebanon … Iran …. etc …etc … etc.
There is nothing more worthless in this world than the President of the United States announcing a cease-fire.
Maybe we can move all our forces out of the Middle East and save a lot of money. That would seem to be in our interest at this time.
Our military serves no purpose in being a target, and neither bombing nor the threat of bombing serves any legitimate interest. We have no reason to violate the UN Charter, international law, the norms of good behavior just because the head of a tiny state called Israel wants us to. His request was preposterous and Trump’s folly is more so.
Really looks like more oil market manipulation and attempt at perfidity. I don’t buy for a second that Trump wants a ceasefire but Israel spoiled it. These are people who can never be trusted, save for their infinite ego and relentless desire for violence, and who’s word means nothing at all.
I hope nobody believed an end to the war was real. It only happens when Israel is broken in pieces and US has absolutely no room or recourses to maneuver. They will not go willingly.