Everyone Knows What Comes Next. That’s Why I Became Suspicious

One MOU. Different losses.

This is not a story about the MOU. It is a story about what happens when intelligent people confront uncertainty.

The smack in the face was stunning. It was bad enough that it seemed Trump was actually going to move forward with an interim deal with Iran but he added salt to the wound when he unjustifiably came down so hard on Israel and Netanyahu at the G7 Summit in Switzerland a few days ago that my head is still whirling. It felt like a major betrayal.

Trying to orient myself, I turned to people I respect to see how they were digesting what was happening. I turned to Israelis, Iranians, and other Middle Eastern figures. I turned to Andrew Fox. I thought I would find answers. Instead, I found intelligent people looking at the same events and seeing completely different futures.

The Context

On the morning of 28 February Israelis were woken up with a warning to be prepared for war because we just assassinated Khamenei. WOW. Adrenaline surge. We knew the drill.

We had been at war so many times before but this felt different. It was after Sinwar had been eliminated and Hamas greatly weakened. It was after the beeper operation that took Hezbollah terrorists out while doing their shopping and just going about their daily lives. It was after Nasralleh had been assassinated in his bunker.

Now it felt like a war to the finish. A war to finally end in clear victory. A war that would bring down the Islamic Regime, setting the Iranian people free and releasing Israel from the existential threats posed by Hamas and Hezbollah as well as a potentially nuclear Iran that in any case has ballistic missiles it does not hesitate to launch at our cities.

Then came the interminable zigzags: announcements of a deal, threats of more war, announcements of a deal, etc. Many of us in Israel were sure that Iran’s foot-dragging and paper tiger threats would compel Trump to finish the job and bring sanity to the Middle East.

We were in limbo, just waiting for Trump to return to open war.

But suddenly that future fell apart: reports of Trump’s emerging “understanding” with Iran were scheduled to culminate in a preliminary deal-signing by 19 June. A deal that would see the opening of the Hormuz, sanctions relief, and ongoing negotiations toward a final deal 60 days later.

And then he told us Syria could handle getting rid of Hezbollah better than us, For example.

Let me show you what I found in the following tables. Table 1 organises some of the people I follow, showing their major concerns.

The emotional intensity of the posts and articles gets lost in the tables. Here are some quotes to give you a sense of them:

Dave Bender: “The people who know aren’t talking, the people who are talking really don’t know.”

Mosab Hassan Yousef: “This isn’t a deal. This is surrender dressed up as diplomacy.”

Haviv Rettig Gur: “Welp, I think we’re done here.”

Hillel Fuld: “… blow up the deal.”

Ida Turan: “A much larger game is in motion, much larger. He didn’t just change overnight, he has proven you wrong before, he will do it again.”

Elica Le Bon: “I cannot overestimate how devastating this decision will be. It is unforgivable, to say the least.”

A list with links to all my source materials is in the Appendix below this article.

Table 2 shows the reactions we see before the details of the MOU became public and after. It is interesting that the Israelis are quick to enter the conversation before the details were publicised while the Iranians mostly waited until the text became available. And amid all the noise, Dave Bender’s calm suggestion to wait 72 hours was in the back of my head. He offered neither optimism nor pessimism, just the rare discipline of refusing to predict the future.

I began reading these voices hoping I would get some anchoring and orientation upon which to begin to form my own approach to this unwanted development.

Instead, I found certainty everywhere and agreement nowhere: The catastrophe is certain. The strategy is certain. The betrayal is certain. The next war is certain.

And then I realised that I wasn’t really comparing Israelis to Iranians, activists to analysts, insiders to outsiders. Each community was responding to what they feared they were losing: security, freedom, survival, regional balance, strategic clarity. They were all grieving different futures that were supposed to have emerged from the fighting.

I went looking for these voices as a way to stabilize myself and found that the most grounding was the first one I read: Dave Bender’s insistence that we wait 72 hours.

And now? Do we now have to wait 72 hours after the digital signing took place to get some idea of what is really ahead?

We already know that Iran is not planning on attending the in-person signing ceremony in Geneva today. Is that merely arrogance? Is it a demonstration of the lack of compliance Israelis and Iranians mostly expect showing up “while the ink is still wet?”

So where am I after all of this?

Amid all those who are certain they know what is going to happen, I know only one thing.

I know what I hope.

I hope the war resumes and the regime falls. I hope the Iranian people are finally free. I hope we Israelis are released from our cycles of existential war.

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Appendix

Links to source posts, listed in alphabetic order by first name.

Andrew Fox, Substack article, June 18, 2026.

Dan Burmawi, Substack article, June 18, 2026.

Dave Bender, Substack article, June 15, 2026.

Elica La Bon, X, June 18, 2026.

Fil Soof, X, June 18, 2026.

Haviv Rettig Gur, X, June 17, 2026.

Haviv Rettig Gur, Substack article, June 18, 2026,

Hillel Fuld, X, June 18 2026.

Ida Turan, X, June 18, 2026.

Masih Alinejad, X, June 18, 2026.

Melanie Phillips, Substack article, June 16, 2026.

Mosab Hasan Yosef, X, June 17, 2026.

Mosab Hasan Yosef, X, June 19, 2026.

Nazanin Boniadi, X, June 18, 2026.

Paula R. Stern, Facebook, June 18, 2026.

Reza Pahlavi, X, June 18, 2026.

Shira Lankin Sheps, Facebook, June 18, 2026.

Sohrab, Sahar, and Ramin, ABCNews article, June 18, 2026.