Israel fought the war against Iran. Israel was not in the room when it ended, leading us to ask, ‘Who is America really allying with?’

On June 17, President Trump signed the Islamabad Memorandum with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, extending the ceasefire between Washington and Tehran by 60 days. Trump signed it at Versailles, during dinner with French President Emmanuel Macron following the G7 summit. Pezeshkian signed it hours later in Tehran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by declaring that Israel was not bound by the agreement and would “preserve its freedom of action” against Hezbollah in Lebanon. The memorandum contains no accord on Iran’s nuclear stockpile, no mention of Iran’s ballistic missile program, and no mention of Iran’s proxy network across the region. It does waive sanctions on Iranian oil exports, restoring Tehran a revenue stream worth hundreds of billions of dollars.

Israel was America’s partner in this war. Israel was not a party to the deal that ended it.

For Rabbi Mendel Kessin, this is not a new betrayal. It is an old one, and the Bible named the man who would commit it thirty-three centuries before he was born.

Does the Hebrew Bible actually predict that a friend of Israel will one day turn against it? Kessin says yes, without qualification.

“Is it possible that the Torah, which was written 3,300 years ago, talks about Trump betraying the Jewish people? Yes,” Kessin says. “Let me tell you the verse that actually predicts that Trump is going to do this, because Yaakov Avinu, when he’s about to meet Esav — Esav was coming to kill him with 400 guys — so Yaakov utters a very strange statement, which really on one level is the Torah predicting this, that Trump is going to one day turn against the Jews. What is that statement?”

The statement is Jacob’s prayer, offered as he prepares to meet his brother Esau after decades apart, unsure whether Esau is coming to reconcile or to kill him:

“Hatzileini na miyad achi, miyad Esav, ki yarei anochi oto, pen yavo v’hikani, em al banim” — “Deliver me, I pray, from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau; else, I fear, he may come and strike me down, mothers and children alike. (Genesis 32:12).

Kessin’s teaching centers on one word: achi, “my brother.” Jacob does not simply say he fears Esau. He specifies that he fears him as a brother — a man bound to him by blood, by covenant, by shared inheritance, who nonetheless carries the capacity to turn and destroy him. The threat Jacob names is not the threat of a stranger. It is the threat of someone close enough to be trusted, who instead raises his hand.

Esau, in the Bible and in the teaching of the Sages, is the forefather of Rome and, by extension, of Western civilization. Kessin applies that identification to the modern American presidency. Trump, in his reading, occupies the role of Esau: an ally close enough to Israel to call himself its brother, a president who has taken credit for defending the Jewish state against Iran, and who Kessin argues carries within that same closeness the biblical potential to turn against it.

Kessin’s argument is not that Trump has already struck the fatal blow. It is that Jacob’s fear in Genesis 32:12 is not fear of an enemy at a distance. It is fear of the brother who stands closest, whose hand is raised precisely because he was trusted not to raise it. Kessin reads the Iran memorandum, and Israel’s exclusion from it, inside that same structure: the ally who fought beside Israel, then signed away the terms of peace without Israel at the table.

Genesis does not end with Esau’s attack. It ends with Jacob preparing for war while praying for peace, sending gifts ahead to soften his brother’s anger, and ultimately weathering Esau’s approach without the violence he feared. Kessin’s audience is meant to hear both halves of that story. The brother’s hand may be raised. It has not yet fallen. Jacob survived Esau’s approach by refusing to rely on the relationship alone. He prepared, he prayed, and he did not stand still.

Israel, in Kessin’s framing, is being asked to read Genesis 32:12 the same way today: not as a prophecy of doom, but as a warning old enough to have already been survived once.