Vance speaks to reporters after the U.S. and Iran held talks at the Lake Lucerne Summit on June 22, 2026, Switzerland. Photo by Nathan Howard-Pool/Getty Images Something’s got to be wrong when JD Vance starts making sense. Last week, while defending his boss’s Iran dealmaking, the vice president cautioned against conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and delivered a sharper dressing-down of the Israeli government than I’ve heard from nearly any politician on either side of the aisle:
“Over the past 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 … 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 that country is in.”
Refreshing, uncommon clarity for any politician – that should not make you forget Vance’s servile cheerleading for the war his boss just launched alongside Israel and his sympathy for neo-Nazis at home and abroad.
Hearing tough talk on Israel from Vance, the presumptive 2028 Republican nominee, I had a frightening premonition: Vance and other younger Republicans claiming the anti-war, tough-on-Israel lane and winning over voters frustrated with Democrats’ perceived incoherence on both issues.
Pro-Palestinian voters shouldn’t trust Vance’s new talking points, but Democrats should be asking themselves why Vance can even pretend to be on the right side of U.S.-Israel policy, and what they can do about it.
By any measure, Trump-Vance has been the most pro-Israel administration in decades
Make no mistake: The Trump-Vance administration has one of the worst records on Israel in U.S. history, whatever they may say at the podium. The Biden administration’s unconditional military support for Israel was criminal, exorbitant, and wasteful – and still dwarfed by the blood and treasure Trump has spent launching not one but two wars against Iran, which, whatever Trump’s motivations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understood as personal gifts. Biden spent $20-$30 billion arming the Israeli military and launching associated U.S. military operations, while Trump’s second Iran war alone cost at least $70 billion. Biden sacrificed half a dozen U.S. troops for his post-October 7 operations, while Trump’s war cost at least 13 servicemembers their lives. Trump even surpassed Biden’s extensive diplomatic cover for Israel, establishing the faux-UN Board of Peace in an attempt to add a patina of international legitimacy to the Israeli government’s ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Rhetoric aside, the Trump administration has backed Netanyahu beyond his wildest dreams. And JD Vance was along for the ride to sell Trump’s blunders, insulting Americans’ intelligence with the argument that the Iran war wouldn’t be like the Middle East interventions he’d previously opposed, because “we have a smart president whereas in the past, we’ve had dumb presidents.” For those wondering whether they can trust Vance’s anti-war bona fides, they’ve proven about as durable as his never-Trump credentials.
Don’t mistake unprecedented tough talk for unprecedented pressure
Vance’s tough talk on Israel comes as Trump is apparently trying to force Netanyahu to end his invasion of Lebanon, which threatens to upend U.S.-Iran peace talks. It would be an undeniable strategic, economic, and moral victory for any U.S. administration to use its immense leverage to prevent the Israeli government from attacking and oppressing its neighbors, but it’s too soon to say if Trump has actually done that. While there are promising signs, such as Netanyahu largely restraining the Israeli military in Lebanon, he still refuses to withdraw, as demanded by Tehran and the U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding. Until Trump actually uses the leverage he and Vance are bragging about, they’re still just the new cast of the Biden administration’s “mad at Netanyahu” act.
Of course, Vance can’t be trusted – so why does it matter what he says about Israel?
Almost every Republican and the vast majority of Democrats are still unable to discuss Gaza or Israel policy without gaslighting, lying, or saying something reprehensible, which is why these issues have become an easy way for candidates who can address them to establish credibility. The 66% of Democrats, 55% of independents, and 20% of Republicans – including a whopping 63% of Republicans under 45 – who want to reduce U.S. support for Israel rarely see their convictions reflected by their elected leadership. Unfortunately, with so few politicians speaking honestly about Israel and so many voters understandably desperate for authenticity, criticizing Israel is also a shortcut for right-wing opportunists to establish their credibility. Anecdotally, I know pro-Palestine advocates and activists who are committed to human rights and would never endorse the conspiracy theories and racism of Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene but are nonetheless grateful for their positions on Gaza.
Enter JD Vance, who, like Trump in 2024, is trying to craft his own “peacemaker” reputation despite all evidence to the contrary. And if Vance calculates he can deflect attacks from pro-Israel donors and commentators – and with Trump’s blessing, he might – he could keep up his anti-Israel schtick through 2028. If that happens, “then you kind of have a runaway train here because Democrats are going to have a long debate on [Israel] in their primary,” compared to Republicans already unified under Trump’s anointed successor, says Hamid Bendaas, communications director at IMEU Policy Project, a pro-Palestine advocacy organization, who has extensively researched voter attitudes about U.S. Israel policy. In other words, when you look at Democrats’ moderate-heavy 2028 roster, there’s a chance Vance goes to the debate stage with a Democrat who sounds less convincing on Israel than he does.
Democrats can’t afford to be afraid when their euphemisms and ambiguity, however well-intentioned, cede credibility to self-styled truth-tellers like Tucker Carlson, or, it seems, JD Vance.
If they can overcome their fears of blowback from donors or party leaders, Democrats still stand to win, as this week’s sweep of New York Democratic congressional primaries by outspoken critics of Israel showed.
“You can be as critical as you want about Israel without getting pushback from voters,” Bendaas tells me, “certainly in the Democratic party but with younger voters regardless of party at this point.”
If Democrats don’t want to get outflanked from the left by Republicans on foreign policy – a risk I take seriously after watching some Democratic lawmakers criticize Trump’s Iran deal to the extent it seems like they want him to go back to war – they need to articulate their own base’s beliefs at least as well as an opportunistic hack like JD Vance.
Harrison Mann is a former US Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Middle East/Africa Regional Center who resigned in protest of his office’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza under the Biden administration. He is currently with the group Win Without War and recently became a Zeteo contributor.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.
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