Netanyahu faces one of the biggest challenges of his career.

Some 60 days from now, when President Trump is supposed to have finalized his peace agreement with Iran, Israel will be weeks from a national election. On the surface, the timing could hardly be worse for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. After three years of inconclusive, on-again-off-again wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, and now with the emergence of a peace deal that Israel is not a party to, Mr. Netanyahu is fighting for his political survival. Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has staked his career on preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, which Israel views as an existential threat. But Israelis across the political spectrum, who have denounced the preliminary peace deal as an American capitulation to Iran, are deeply skeptical that any final agreement will answer their major security concerns. The agreement seeks to curtail Israel’s freedom of action in Lebanon, where the Israeli military has been fighting Hezbollah, the Iran-backed proxy militia on its doorstep. The deal makes no mention of curbing Iran’s ballistic missiles, which Iran has used to attack Israel and U.S. Gulf allies during the wars. And it leaves the nuclear issue to be addressed in further negotiations. In another sting, Mr. Trump has recently taken to demeaning Mr. Netanyahu in public, saying that the Israeli leader “gets a little excited sometimes” and that “he’ll do whatever I want him to do.” Mr. Trump also confirmed that he had called Mr. Netanyahu “crazy” in a recent, expletive-laden phone call. Only weeks ago, the two leaders had seemed like the closest of allies, waging war together against Iran in the first such joint military campaigns in their countries’ history. Mr. Netanyahu had long banked on his partnership with Mr. Trump as a potentially winning card in the election this fall. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .