Israel Outlines Conditions for Accepting an Iran Nuclear Agreement

As the United States and Iran negotiate through Pakistani mediation to end a war that has already reshaped the Middle East, Israel has laid out a set of conditions for any nuclear agreement that would go far beyond anything previously agreed upon in international arms control. The demands — zero enrichment, missile caps, dismantlement of underground facilities, and open-ended inspections — represent either a maximalist opening bid or a signal that Jerusalem would prefer no deal at all.

What Israel Is Asking For

Israeli officials have articulated a set of interlocking conditions across nuclear, missile, and regional security domains.

On enrichment, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for the "removal of the enriched material from Iran, all the enriched material, and the dismantling of Iran's enrichment capabilities" [1]. Former National Security Advisor Yaakov Amidror was more direct: "Weaponized uranium must leave Iran. The Iranians must not be allowed to enrich uranium" [1]. This means not just halting enrichment but physically removing existing stockpiles and dismantling the centrifuge infrastructure at facilities including the underground Fordow site (known as "Pickaxe") and Isfahan [1].

On missiles, Israel considers ballistic missile restrictions equally critical. Amidror warned that without restrictions, Iran could develop missiles "capable of reaching half of Europe within five to ten years" [1]. Multiple Iranian missile systems — the Shahab-3 (1,300 km range), Emad (1,700 km), Ghadr (2,000 km), and Sejjil-2 (2,000 km) — already place all of Israel within striking distance [2]. Iran has claimed a self-imposed range limit of 2,000 km, though launches toward the British base at Diego Garcia (roughly 4,000 km) during the 2026 conflict cast doubt on that claim [2].

On enforcement, Avner Golov of the Mind Israel think tank demanded "unprecedented monitoring and supervision, anywhere, under any conditions and not dependent on Iranian approval" [1]. Golov also insisted on "an agreement without sunsets" — meaning no expiration dates on restrictions [1]. Jonathan Ruhe of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) has argued that Israel must retain freedom of military action if Iran violates any terms [1].

Israel has also demanded that Iran sever ties with Hamas and Hezbollah, preventing any sanctions relief funds from flowing to proxy reconstruction [1].

The JCPOA Baseline: What Iran Already Gave Up Once

To understand the scale of Israel's demands, they must be measured against the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the deal Iran actually signed and complied with before the U.S. withdrew.

Under the JCPOA, Iran was permitted to enrich uranium up to 3.67% — far below weapons-grade (90%) but sufficient for civilian power generation [3]. Iran was limited to 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz and capped at a stockpile of roughly 202 kg of low-enriched uranium [4]. Its breakout time — the period needed to produce enough weapons-grade material for a single weapon — was extended to approximately 12 months [4].

Source: Arms Control Association / IAEA Reports

Data as of May 1, 2026CSV

The JCPOA did not cover Iran's ballistic missile program. UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the deal, replaced binding missile restrictions with weaker language "calling upon" Iran to refrain from missile activities — a deliberate compromise that Israel and Gulf states criticized at the time [5].

Israel's current demands eliminate every concession the JCPOA granted: zero enrichment versus 3.67%, full dismantlement versus capped infrastructure, no sunset clauses versus restrictions that began expiring after 10-15 years, and missile coverage that the original deal explicitly excluded.

Where Iran's Program Stands Now

The gap between JCPOA limits and Iran's current capabilities illustrates what "rolling back" would actually require.

As of late 2024, before the June 2025 military strikes, Iran had accumulated 182 kg of uranium enriched to 60% — near weapons-grade — along with 840 kg enriched to 20% and 2,595 kg enriched to 5% [4]. Iran was operating an estimated 14,000 or more centrifuges, including advanced IR-2m, IR-4, and IR-6 models that the JCPOA had prohibited [4][6]. At that point, the Arms Control Association estimated Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for five to six bombs in under two weeks [4].

Source: Arms Control Association / IAEA Reports

Data as of May 1, 2026CSV

The June 2025 Twelve-Day War between Israel, the United States, and Iran significantly damaged Iran's enrichment infrastructure. The Pentagon estimated the strikes pushed Iran's timeline back to roughly two years from a weapon, while Israeli estimates placed it at two to three years [7]. However, nuclear experts emphasize that "breakout time" measures only fissile material production, not the additional months or years required for weaponization — designing and building a deliverable warhead [7].

A critical unknown is Iran's existing stockpile. The IAEA has confirmed that Iran stored most of its highly enriched uranium at an underground tunnel complex at Isfahan, and as of February 2026, Tehran had not permitted inspectors access to facilities affected by the military strikes [8]. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned that without inspections, "you will not have an agreement, you will have an illusion of an agreement" [9].

The Enforcement Problem

Israel's demand for "unprecedented monitoring" without Iranian approval raises questions about what enforcement mechanism could realistically work.

Under the JCPOA, verification relied on IAEA inspections under the Additional Protocol, which granted inspectors access to declared and undeclared sites with a managed process for resolving disputes. Iran suspended its Additional Protocol commitments in February 2021 after the U.S. withdrawal [4].

The current situation is worse. Since the June 2025 strikes, Iran has not provided the IAEA with "declarations, reports or access in relation to any of its declared nuclear facilities that had been affected by, or subjected to, military attacks" [8]. An agreement reached in principle in September 2025 for inspectors to return has not been fully implemented [10].

No precedent exists in international arms control for a third-party country — in this case, Israel — holding veto power or unilateral inspection rights over a bilateral agreement. The closest analogue might be the JCPOA's dispute resolution mechanism, which allowed any participant (including France, Britain, and Germany) to trigger the "snapback" of UN sanctions. But that mechanism gave participants process rights within the agreement's framework, not unilateral enforcement authority outside it.

What Israel appears to want is closer to a guarantee of military freedom of action — the right to strike if it judges Iran to be in violation, regardless of what the IAEA or the United States concludes. This is less an enforcement mechanism than a reservation of sovereignty, and it is difficult to imagine Tehran accepting a deal premised on it.

Iran's Case: Why Would Tehran Accept Stricter Terms Than a Deal America Already Broke?

The steelman argument for Iran's resistance is straightforward: Iran signed the JCPOA, complied with its terms according to multiple IAEA verification reports, and watched the United States unilaterally withdraw in 2018 under President Trump [3]. European signatories — France, Britain, and Germany — failed to deliver promised economic benefits or shield Iran from reimposed sanctions [5].

From Tehran's perspective, enrichment is both a sovereign right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a hard-won bargaining chip. Iranian leaders have declared enrichment "non-negotiable" [11]. Iran's Foreign Ministry has demanded that any sanctions relief "bring tangible economic benefits," including guaranteed restoration of banking and trade ties, before restrictions take effect [11].

Iran has also called for "firm international guarantees against future aggression" — a demand that implicitly acknowledges the JCPOA's fatal flaw [12]. Iran's ambassador to China has suggested guarantees from powers including China, Pakistan, Turkey, and Russia, plus direct UN Security Council assurances [12]. Tehran wants structural protections against a repeat of 2018, where compliance earned it nothing.

No U.S. or European negotiator has publicly offered the kind of binding, treaty-level security guarantee that would address this concern. The Trump administration's current demand for "full dismantlement" of enrichment [11] comes from the same president who withdrew from the last deal — a credibility problem that arms control analysts at the Arms Control Association have described as leaving U.S. negotiators "ill-prepared for serious nuclear talks" [13].

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace has suggested that the most realistic near-term outcome may be a "minimalist containment approach": Iran refrains from enrichment and avoids processing highly enriched stockpiles, while the U.S. exercises restraint on nuclear-related sanctions enforcement — resembling the informal understandings of the Biden era rather than a comprehensive treaty [11].

The Gulf States: Fractured, Not United

Israel's conditions do not exist in a vacuum. The positions of Arab states — particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE — shape the diplomatic environment in which any deal must survive.

The UAE has taken the most hawkish stance among Gulf states, publicly aligned with the Israeli-American offensive and calling for the "unconditional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz," Iranian reparations, and a comprehensive agreement curtailing Iran's missile program and proxy support [14]. The UAE's Abraham Accords relationship with Israel has decoupled its Iran policy from the Palestinian question, enabling this alignment [15].

Saudi Arabia's position is more complex. Riyadh views Iran as "an actual threat" requiring enhanced military defense capabilities [15], but it remains constrained by two factors. First, Saudi Arabia insists that normalization with Israel requires "a credible path toward establishing a Palestinian state" — a condition Israel has shown no willingness to meet [15]. Second, Riyadh needs regional stability to attract investment for its Vision 2030 economic program, making open conflict with Iran costly [14].

A separate complication is the proposed U.S.-Saudi nuclear cooperation deal, which arms control experts have warned could allow Saudi uranium enrichment — creating an uncomfortable parallel where Washington grants Riyadh nuclear privileges it denies Tehran [16].

Egypt has remained largely on the sidelines, and the broader Gulf Cooperation Council has not adopted a unified position. The Carnegie Endowment assessed that Gulf unity against Iran "will likely fragment," with Saudi Arabia and the UAE "moving in different directions" [15].

The Strike Threshold: When Does Israel Act?

Israel's conditions carry an implicit military dimension. Israeli strategic thinking is threshold-based: strikes become more likely if intelligence suggests Iran is reconstituting air defenses around key nuclear sites or dispersing critical enrichment equipment [7].

The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has identified a particularly destabilizing scenario — the "reconstitution trigger." If Israel concludes that the June 2025 strikes created only a temporary delay and that Iran is rapidly rebuilding, it may judge that it must strike again before reconstruction reaches a point where facilities become too hardened to penetrate [7].

Current estimates place Iran's timeline to a weapon at two to three years, assuming no foreign assistance [7]. But these estimates carry significant uncertainty given the IAEA's limited access. Israel's Institute for National Security Studies has argued that the post-war period represents a narrow window for diplomacy, and that failure to reach a deal will force Israel to choose between accepting an eventual Iranian nuclear capability or launching another military campaign [17].

How Israeli Demands Have Evolved

Netanyahu's 2015 speech to the U.S. Congress set the template for Israeli opposition to Iran deals. His core demands then were that Iran "stop aggression against its neighbors, stop supporting terrorism around the world, and stop threatening to annihilate Israel" — conditions that linked nuclear restrictions to broader behavioral change [18].

The post-October 7 period, the subsequent war with Hezbollah, and the 2026 Iran conflict have hardened these positions. What has changed is less the substance of Israel's demands than the political context. In 2015, Netanyahu confronted a U.S. president pursuing accommodation with Iran. In 2026, he is aligned with an American president who has already used military force against Iran [19].

Several demands are genuinely new: the insistence on zero enrichment (the 2015 objection was to sunset clauses, not to enrichment itself), the explicit call for missile restrictions (previously a secondary concern), and the demand for no sunset clauses (the JCPOA's 10-15 year timelines were Netanyahu's primary 2015 objection, but he proposed extending them, not eliminating them) [18][1].

Whether these escalated demands reflect genuine security requirements or domestic political positioning is an open question. Netanyahu faces political incentives to set conditions so stringent that no deal can meet them, allowing him to claim any agreement is insufficient. But the June 2025 strikes also created a new strategic reality: having degraded Iran's nuclear infrastructure by force, Israel has stronger grounds to insist that any diplomatic settlement lock in those military gains.

What Comes Next

The negotiations, mediated by Pakistan, remain in flux. Iran's Foreign Minister has said an agreement is "just inches away" while criticizing "maximalist demands" from the U.S. side [11]. Trump has urged Iran to sign a deal "fast" [20]. The European troika of France, Britain, and Germany retains the ability to trigger the JCPOA's snapback mechanism, permanently reinstating UN sanctions — a deadline pressure that adds urgency for Tehran [12].

The fundamental tension is structural. Israel demands terms that would require Iran to accept restrictions more severe than any non-proliferation agreement in history, imposed by the same coalition that just bombed its nuclear facilities, guaranteed by the same country that broke the last deal. Iran demands security assurances that no party has the political will or legal mechanism to provide. The IAEA lacks access to verify the current state of Iran's program.

A comprehensive deal satisfying all of Israel's stated conditions appears unlikely in the near term. The more probable outcomes range from a narrow agreement focused on enrichment suspension and IAEA access — leaving missiles and proxies for later — to a collapse of talks that restarts the cycle of escalation. The window for diplomacy that the June 2025 strikes opened will not remain open indefinitely.