TEL AVIV, Sept. 25 -- Benjamin Netanyahu came to New York with one word prepared. On Wednesday, after watching Iran hand its written ceasefire roadmap to American envoys, watching Russia and China endorse it at the Security Council, watching Germany split from France and Britain, and watching Saudi Arabia conditionally accept the framework, Israel's prime minister called it a trap.

The word does real work in Israeli political discourse. A trap implies the other side is not serious - that the document in Steve Witkoff's hands is not a genuine offer but a maneuver, that 60 days of ceasefire buys Iran time to reconstitute, that any pause in American pressure is a gift Tehran will pocket and walk away from. Netanyahu has made this argument a...