US Vice President JD Vance defended Washington’s agreement with Iran, questioning Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's criticism of the deal in an interview with The New York Times on Thursday.
“What is your exact proposal?” he asked. “You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”
Ben-Gvir responded to Vance’s comments by saying that the plan is “to deal with the Nazis of the 21st century, just as the United States dealt with the Nazis of the 20th century.”
Vance claims Netanyahu more familiar with terms of MoU than Smotrich, Ben-Gvir
Vance noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has not scrutinized the deal to the same extent as Smotrich and Ben Gvir have, stating that the lack of criticism may be because Netanyahu is “a little bit more familiar with the details of what’s in it.”
Vance asserted that US President Donald Trump, who signed the US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding on Wednesday in France, has noticed a “misalignment” between the goals of Israeli officials and the American public.
“He’s willing to say that we’re going to pursue America’s interests where there are divergences,” Vance told the NYT.
He urged Israeli leadership to give their US counterparts “ a little bit of credit,” adding that America has been an “incredible” partner and has “protected a lot of Israeli lives through our missile systems and through our missile programs over the last few months.”
Vance decried 'weird panic' that MoU may enable Iranian support for Hezbollah
“I think that America has earned the trust of that region of the world,” Vance continued, decrying what he claimed was a “weird panic” across Israel regarding the possibility that the deal will enable Iran to continue supporting terrorist proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“Do they actually think we’re going to release sanctions on the Iranian system if they’re still funding a terrorist organization?” Vance asked.
“The answer is: Of course not,” he asserted. “The idea that we’ve made a terrible deal is not supported by the facts; it just doesn’t make any sense if you consider the broad length of the relationship.”
Vance stated that while he recognizes that Israeli leadership and the Israeli public are “very sensitive” regarding the deal, he believes that some are “ picking up on some misinformation about the deal… and sort of panicking about it.”