Le Monde
Jun 19, 2026
Vance’s stark warning to Israeli leaders: ‘Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel’
By sharply criticizing Israel, accusing it of blocking the agreement signed between Washington and Tehran on June 17, the US vice president exposed a lasting rift between the two countries.
By Luc Bronner (Jerusalem, correspondent)
Published today at 12:58 pm (Paris), updated at 1:00 pm
4 min read
The break was spectacular, sudden and deep. During a press conference on Thursday, June 18, US Vice President JD Vance delivered a harsh and almost threatening message to Israel, a longtime ally. “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. And he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower. If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally I have left,” Vance warned. He was referring to criticism from Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, two far-right ministers, regarding the memorandum of understanding signed with Iran on June 17.
As if that warning were not enough, Vance went even further, criticizing Israel beyond just its government, using words that will resonate for a long time: “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump. And anyone 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 that country is in,” Vance emphasized. In other words, Israel has been able to wage a war of annihilation in Gaza for two years, killing more than 73,000 Palestinians (according to Gaza’s health ministry), without provoking any US reaction. But criticizing or threatening a deal signed by Donald Trump is off limits.
This episode will leave its mark. The reality check is especially harsh for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has built his strategy around his personal relationship with the current US president, using it as leverage for military power and as a political asset in the upcoming fall elections. His close relationship with Trump allowed him to push hard to convince the United States to launch a large-scale strike on Iran at the end of February, a goal he had long hoped to achieve from an American president.
But Trump, more unpredictable than ever, changed course several times on Iran before ultimately signing the memorandum of understanding that is widely seen as extremely favorable to the Islamic Republic, a regime he had previously predicted and wished would collapse when launching the offensive.
Aggressive outbursts
As a result, facing the risk that Netanyahu might try to derail the process – as he has done in the past, notably in Gaza – Trump issued a series of aggressive (”You’re fucking crazy”) and threatening (”Without the US, there would be no Israel”) statements. But in the medium term and at the strategic level, the break is most significant and concerning for Israel.
Support for Israel has been a constant in US foreign policy for decades, regardless of the president’s political affiliation, and even more so after the attack carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023. “There is no greater friendship than the one between Israel and the United States,” Netanyahu has repeatedly said.
Militarily, except for a period when Joe Biden temporarily suspended the delivery of offensive munitions intended for use in Gaza, cooperation has never been smoother.
After the launch of the joint military operation against Iran on February 28, military experts competed in superlatives to praise the bond between the two militaries. Operationally, they shared Iranian airspace to bomb as many targets as possible. In response to Tehran’s retaliation, which involved more than 600 missiles fired at Israel, the US activated its air defense systems. Israelis saw this as integration; Vance sharply reminded them on Thursday that it was, first and foremost, dependence: “Over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.”
Difficult situation
Iran suffered considerable damage but did not yield. Its strategy worked, especially in recent weeks: by pushing Israel to respond to Hezbollah’s attacks by bombing Beirut, and thus jeopardizing ongoing negotiations, Iran drove a wedge into the historic alliance between Americans and Israelis. As a result, Netanyahu faces a difficult situation on the Lebanese front, where his army occupies a zone about 10 kilometers deep along the entire border.
The deal signed between the US and Iran, from which Netanyahu was completely excluded, calls for a halt to hostilities and respect for Lebanon’s territorial integrity. For now, this remains wishful thinking: the ceasefire has never been implemented. Thursday night saw particularly violent clashes, with four Israelis killed and at least 25 people killed by bombings in Lebanon, which led to the cancellation of talks scheduled for Friday in Switzerland between Iran and the US.
Netanyahu said he refused to withdraw his army from southern Lebanon “because this zone is the barrier between Hezbollah terrorists and our citizens and communities,” he explained. His electorate, whipped up for years by promises of “total victory,” would not forgive him. He’s meanwhile tried to calm tensions with US leaders, avoiding any public criticism. “The fight is not over, and other challenges await us. They require discernment, a determined defense of Israel’s security interests and, at the same time, preserving our vital relationship with our American friends, who have stood by us in this fight, a partnership we deeply appreciate,” Netanyahu said on Thursday, while inaugurating a highway segment in the West Bank designed to accelerate settlement expansion.
Vance’s words are illuminating to Israelis who refused to acknowledge the strategic dead end of all-out war. Israel has continued to isolate itself over the past two years, implicitly or explicitly dismissing criticism as a form of antisemitism. It lost the support of many political leaders who had expressed their outrage after the October 7 attacks. More seriously and lastingly, it lost public opinion, especially in Europe and the US. “Israel just met the America that comes after Trump,” summed up Zvika Klein, editor-in-chief of the English-language daily Jerusalem Post, on Friday morning.
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