This Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.

It took Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more than seven hours to formulate a response on Monday to US President Donald Trump’s bombshell announcement that his emissaries were negotiating indirectly with the “top man” in Iran on a deal to end the war, and that the sides had reached agreement on some 15 key points.

And no wonder the prime minister struggled to find the words. He needed to somewhat dissociate himself and Israel from the US president’s gambit, without sounding like he was doing so.

The 37-second video he eventually produced managed to do that. Looking determinedly upbeat, Netanyahu appeared on a cursory listen to be warmly endorsing Trump’s outreach to the Iranian regime, but in fact he did no such thing. “Our friend President Trump,” he declared, “believes that there is an opportunity to leverage the massive achievements of the IDF and the US military in order to achieve the goals of the war through an agreement — an agreement that will safeguard our vital interests.”

Note the wording: Trump believes there is an opportunity. Trump believes he can reach an agreement that safeguards Israel’s interests.

And note, too, the final sentence of the prime minister’s very brief, very protractedly crafted message. “We will safeguard our vital interests under all circumstances.” As in, ultimately, Israel can and must only rely on its own capacity to protect itself.

Answering reporters’ questions on his dealings with the ostensible new “most respected” figure in the Islamic Republic — “the leader,” no less — the US president on Monday noted, as he often does, “My life is a deal. That’s all I do is deals, my whole life.”

But if he indeed strikes a deal with the regime — and especially if it turns out that the “top man” with whom he is interacting is, in fact, Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Ghalibaf — a “Death to America”-shouting former commander in the terror-exporting Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and murderous suppressor of anti-regime protests at home — Trump risks subverting the very goals of the war he and Netanyahu launched against the Islamic Republic less than four weeks ago.

Denouncing the regime on February 28 as “a vicious group of very hard, terrible people,” Trump accurately accused it of menacing the US and its allies worldwide for 47 years, promised to “raze their missile industry,” vowed to ensure Iran would never attain a nuclear weapon, and told Iranians that “the hour of your freedom is at hand.” When the bombs stop, he urged, “Take over your government. It will be yours to........

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