One may say that Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman is crass, radical and cynical, but one absolutely cannot accuse him of stupidity, naivete or negligence. The announcement condemning the president of the United States that Liberman demanded his ministry's spokesman (and not, as is customary, his own media adviser) issue on Aug. 5 was no slip of the tongue. A seasoned politician like Liberman surely knew that the mere mention of the Munich Agreement with Hitler would stir the media out of its weekend doldrums. And indeed, Munich did the job. The defense minister as well as the prime minister then apologized for the style, but not for the message.

The half-hearted apologies provided them an opportunity to reiterate their message: that the agreement signed with Iran a year ago is not worth the paper it’s written on. A clarification issued by the Defense Ministry read, “Israel remains deeply concerned by the fact that even after the agreement with Iran, the Iranian leadership continues to declare that its central goal is the destruction of the State of Israel and continues to threaten Israel’s existence with words and deeds.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Aug. 5 that Israel’s position on the Iran deal ''remains unchanged.” Its stance is that the Iranians were and still are a gang of con men whose signature means nothing. Liberman praised the United States and the president “for their tremendous contribution to Israel’s national security.” Netanyahu was careful to sign off with, “The prime minister firmly believes that Israel has no more important ally than the United States.” It almost goes without saying that important allies don’t prevent each other from equipping themselves with the best means of deterrence and warfare.

Israel’s political echelon cannot ignore the declaration by the US president that the agreement “has worked exactly the way we said it was going to work.” Obama was right in saying recently, “That would be a shock. … If some of these folks who had said the sky is falling suddenly said, 'You know what, we were wrong and we're glad that Iran no longer has the capacity to break out in short term and develop a nuclear weapon.'”