Israel Is Working Ceaselessly to Scuttle Any Iran Peace Deal

Update: President Donald Trump confirmed on Tuesday that the downed Apache gunship mentioned in this piece was indeed shot down by Iran, and vowed retaliation in return, mere hours after he had proclaimed that a peace deal was imminent.

Perhaps it’s the endless, circuitous nature of the news cycle, the way the same handful of headlines repeat over and over as the people generating the news act blind to the cycle, that makes a film like Backrooms resonate on such a deep, subconscious level with the average multiplex-goer. We flock to the theater to watch a creepypasta story come to life about being trapped in an endless labyrinth of barely remembered horrors, as the same experience proliferates outside the theater on the front page of our daily news consumption. This week: we’re told the war in Iran is close to over, but fresh shooting between Israel and Lebanon threatens to ruin the deal. Last week: we’re told the war in Iran is close to over, but fresh shooting between Israel and … well, you get it, I hope. No matter how many times our ineffectual, utterly powerless President hops on the phone with the likes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and claims to have brokered yet another pause in the shooting, the next day’s provocations simply continue as if the prior day never happened. The only constant is that Israel’s leadership–which is still bombing civilians in Gaza, by the way–never demonstrates any behavior that would signify a desire to stop the constant violence of the region, only enflame it further.

Not that we need a whole lot of help in fucking up the perpetually slowed negotiations with Iran, mind you. I am perfectly confident that Donald Trump and his proxies could continue to botch those peace talks just fine on their own, and each day brings another momentary crisis that threatens to send the whole thing spiraling back into abject chaos. Yesterday, we apparently lost an Apache gunship for the first time in the conflict, reportedly plummeting into the sea near the Strait of Hormuz. Was it attacked by Iran? Who can say—certainly not our military, which offered zero explanation for what happened (Trump confirmed on Tuesday that the chopper was attacked by Iran). The one constant here is that no matter what is going on at any given time, Trump is always proclaiming that the United States is just about to reach a deal, which somehow succeeds in momentarily calming oil markets no matter how many dozens of times he’s already lied about this exact scenario. Goldfish brains have apparently become epidemic. By CNN’s count, Trump has proclaimed on 38 separate occasions that a peace deal was just about to be announced in the more than two months since the “ceasefire” was first announced, even as the U.S. and Iran have continued shooting at each other.

Iran’s IRGC says the barrage of missiles is ‘a warning’ to Israel amid its ongoing siege of Lebanon.

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— Al Jazeera English (@aljazeera.com) 5:30 PM · Jun 7, 2026

Still, that seemingly hasn’t been enough shooting for the taste of Israel, given the country’s dogged determination to reignite the conflict into more flagrant hostilities. Today, Israel renewed its strikes on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon yet again, attacking public housing in the city of Tyre, where their strikes killed a handful of people yesterday, saying that Israel was targeting “terrorist Hezbollah infrastructure,” even as Israeli troops continue to push forward and seize territory on the ground in Lebanon. This comes all of a day after Trump was begging Netanyahu not to provoke further direct conflict with Iran, and after Iran warned that it would resume strikes on Israel if Israel continued to fire on Lebanon. Countdown to Iranian retaliation, and then Israeli retaliation …

The whole thing is utterly exhausting; just an endless cycle of countries choosing to blindly act via symbolic, violent rebukes, while pretending to not be able to see what the immediate consequences will be of acting. You can almost pity the likes of Trump, who days ago was fuming on yet another call with Netanyahu, reportedly telling him “You’re fucking crazy” for reigniting the trading of fire with Lebanon. I say “almost,” because any attempt to empathize with Trump is instantly undone by the basic facts of the situation, that he was ultimately the one who signed off on getting the United States into its latest Middle Eastern quagmire, which he now describes as “boring” as it stretches on interminably. Is it an impediment to the peace process when your President is more concerned about NBA Finals appearances (where he publicly falls asleep yet again) than the fact that his latest war is threatening to spill out into the entire region yet again?

Israel continues to bomb Lebanon.

Yesterday they murdered at least 14 people.

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— Saul Staniforth (@saulstaniforth.bsky.social) 3:34 AM · Jun 9, 2026

That Israel’s meddling in the conflict has already prolonged it doesn’t seem to be in dispute at this point; the more pertinent question is how directly Israel has worked to undermine U.S. intentions in securing a more lasting peace deal. Things don’t look great on that front, either: Last week, the Defense Intelligence Agency within the DOD released a report noting that the counterintelligence threat level posed by Israel has been upgraded by the United States to the highest possible level, from “high” to “critical.” Included in the report are “concerns” that Israel has been, or has been attempting, to directly eavesdrop on senior American diplomatic officials engaged in negotiations with Iranian leadership; information that Israel could no doubt use to its own aims, including the prolonging of the conflict. An unnamed White House official naturally claimed that the Department of Defense’s own report was false, even as multiple senior officials told the New York Times that the intensity of Israeli intelligence collection on senior U.S. officials was at “unhinged” levels.

Today, we’re right back where we’ve been for weeks or months, with Trump saying that a deal to end the war is days away, and Israel blithely ignoring warnings about the reignition of widespread hostilities as it lobs explosives toward civilians. Just another day for us in the Backrooms.

“We’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” said Trump, as if this isn’t something he’s said dozens of times previously. “I think we’re very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal.”