But they came as diplomatic and economic pressures on Iran are intensifying, and some analysts said they could feed into increasing doubts among the Israeli public about the advisability of an independent strike on Iran.

Shlomo Avineri, a political scientist at Hebrew University and former director general of the Foreign Ministry, said, “This is bringing the latent disagreement, which has been there for months, into the open, and it gives steam to the public debate.”

“This all fits into the fact that there is now a serious diplomatic effort to stop the Iranians, and obviously things are moving,” he said. “Four or five months ago, an Israeli leadership could say, look, nobody’s doing anything. You can’t say that anymore.”

At the same time, there is a growing sense that Israeli elections will be called this fall rather than next year. And while Mr. Netanyahu’s popularity remains all but impenetrable, coalition politics means a robust campaign filled with charged language nonetheless.

Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli who runs the blog Middle East Analyst, said criticism of Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak’s approach was growing because they were “ignoring or downplaying” their own achievements in terms of winning support from the Obama administration and the international community, and instead “obsessing with the military option.”

“Netanyahu and Barak are becoming more isolated,” Mr. Javedanfar wrote in an e-mail interview. “The avalanche of public criticism of their Iran narrative is getting bigger and gathering more momentum.”

Though the Iranian government insists that its nuclear intentions are for civilian purposes, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak have made it clear for months that they believe urgent action is needed to stop it from building a nuclear bomb. The two men are widely considered to be the key, if not lone, decision makers on the issue, but on Saturday, even as Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom expressed “faith in Barak and Netanyahu that they are handling the matter in an appropriate manner,” he made sure to reassure the public that “decisions are made by a broader forum.”