What happens when you promise the country that there will be no limits on the IDF's actions repeatedly and then there repeatedly are limits?
This is the dilemma which Defense Minister Israel Katz has after many prior promises and another promise Monday night.
It happened in June 2025 when he publicly promised that Israel would strike Iran again on a massive scale after the Islamic Republic briefly and without much impact, violated the ceasefire then negotiated by US President Donald Trump.
Trump called back the aircraft that Katz sent to strike Iran, with a small insignificant symbolic strike being allowed.
Katz never explained the turnaround.
Will Israel retreat to satisfy Trump, who seems to wield immense power in its decisions?
Similar incidents happened when Katz promised Israel would keep striking Iran after the April 7 newer Trump ceasefire with Iran.
The defense minister also leaked to many sources that Trump and Tehran were too far apart, so they would never reach a framework agreement - until they did. More recently, Katz has said that the IDF can bomb and attack anything and everything in Lebanon, including in Beirut - except Trump has now said that it cannot, so it has stopped.
The defense minister has said that the IDF will not withdraw from any area that it has taken over in the near future.
And yet leaks pretty much confirm that this promise will also be proved wrong.
Late on Monday, Katz promised by direct video message to the public that the IDF will continue to act everywhere and anywhere it needs to.
But leaks are rampant that on both the northern and southern borders, officially or unofficially, commanders are on edge about when they can use force and when they cannot, and how long they will need to retreat from their current positions.
There is an interesting debate going on in Israel about when and where the country must listen to Trump imposing limits to maintain his support on other critical military, diplomatic, economic, and public relations issues.
When will Katz acknowledge the gap between the promises and the realities as well as the real debates and sacrifices the IDF is making now to preserve Washington's support?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tends to be more careful and qualified in his statements than Katz, but he likely soon will also have to explain to Israelis the hard tradeoffs that are being made (and quite possibly need to be made even if they are bad politics) underneath the perfect sounding slogans.