"The prime minister must demand from President [Donald] Trump that he freeze, change or cancel the Iranian nuclear agreement," began Israel's Minister of Intelligence and Transportation Yisrael Katz's speech to the Institute for Counter Terrorism's 17th annual conference in Herzliya on Sept. 11. Katz devoted almost his entire speech to the issue, describing Iran as "the new North Korea." He emphasized, "We need to act now so we won't be sorry tomorrow about what we didn't do yesterday." Katz's comments were quoted extensively by the international press.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu jumped into the fray the next day. At the start of his meeting with Argentinian President Mauricio Macri, the prime minister told reporters, "Our position is straightforward. This is a bad deal — either fix it or cancel it. This is Israel's position." Netanyahu is expected to highlight the issue in his upcoming meeting with Trump at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York.

While Netanyahu was making his comments in Argentina, Reuters released a contradictory report. It quoted sources in the US administration as claiming that Israel is not asking for the termination of the nuclear deal with Iran and that Saudi Arabia is opposed to the cancellation of the deal. Senior US officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, hold that the deal should not be touched. Instead, they want to see strategic planning to increase pressure on Iran on issues unrelated to the deal, such as support for terrorism, its ballistic missile project and the precision rocket and missile project in Syria and Lebanon. The Americans hope that this plan will mitigate Israeli concerns.

It will not. Katz's speech, Netanyahu's comments and the Reuters quotes reveal a sharp disagreement between Israel's political and military leadership over the Iranian issue. It is not a strategic argument, either. The top brass of the IDF, Military Intelligence and Mossad all realize that the Iranians have not shelved their ambition to become a nuclear power — nor will they. The difference is that the defense establishment has accepted the nuclear deal as a fact and managed to find certain positive opportunities in it. The IDF has reorganized in accordance with the new situation, and its multiyear planning program "Gideon" has been formulated on the assumption that the Iranian nuclear threat has been placed in the deep freeze for a decade. Senior Israeli defense officials have emphasized the opportunity it affords Israel to deal with other problems, reprioritize and take advantage of this window in Iran's nuclear schedule.