Vice President JD Vance on Thursday issued a stark warning for the Israeli government to get on board with President Donald Trump’s controversial agreement with Iran, suggesting Israel had alienated much of the globe in recent years and that the U.S. was its last remaining major ally.
“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” Vance said near the end of an hourlong White House briefing with reporters.
The remarks were the most public display of how much the Trump Administration’s relationship with Israeli leadership has grown increasingly acrimonious since the U.S. and Israel jointly launched a war against Iran nearly four months ago.
Vance spent most of the briefing defending the Iran deal, which Israel was not a direct party to but commits the country to halting its missile attacks in Southern Lebanon while resuscitating Iran’s economy through lifting its crude oil sanctions. In exchange, Iran agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and promised to not to produce any nuclear weapons.
The signing of the MOU began a 60-day negotiation that could lead to the set up of a $300 billion rehabilitation fund for Iran’s economic development.
Israeli officials have expressed “deep concern” about the deal, according to Axios,. A Netanyahu adviser said Israel doesn’t consider itself bound by the Lebanon part of the memorandum .
While Netanyahu himself has not made any public comments about the deal since the signing of the memorandum, Israeli media outlets aligned with Netanyahu have criticized Trump and his team, accusing Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner of selling out Israel for financial gain.
In response to those attacks, Vance pointed out that two-thirds of Israel’s defense weapons have been built and paid for by Americans and that the problem for Israel “is not Donald Trump.”
“Anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation in that country,” he added.
Vance also said the Trump administration has spoken to the Israeli government as well as members in the Gulf Coast “pretty much every day,” and he said he did not hear those concerns during his conversations he had with senior Israeli officials.
Vance also criticized Israel’s recent decision to launch deadly strikes in Beirut as the U.S. was on the verge of major breakthroughs in the Iran deal negotiations. He said many people who were killed in those strikes “have nothing to do with Hezbollah,” the terrorist organization that Israel claims to have been targeting.
“Our message to the Israelis—just as our message to everybody else—is, fundamentally, we want this peace process to be good for you.” Vance said. “We do not want Hezbollah attacking Israel, but in order to ensure that that happens, we have got to actually build the kind of regional framework that can…cut off Iranian support for Hezbollah, and also ensure that Lebanon’s territorial sovereignty is respected by all parties.”
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