When US and Israeli warplanes attacked Iran on February 28, Israeli officials allowed themselves to believe that the alliance was entering a golden age. Four months later, they look to a future where Israel stands more alone than ever.
The US vice president set the stage last week, telling Israel it has almost no friends left in the world, and that it should think hard before turning on the one it has.
But Israel’s problem is bigger than JD Vance, according to seven people, including US and Israeli officials and others familiar with the relationship. Instead, they say, Vance is just the face of a new normal, where Israel’s status as an American ally is not above all others.
Israel hoped when President Donald Trump took office that his America First foreign policy would include “exceptions” for Israel, an Israeli political consultant said.
“That would never go on. We could never sit for four years as an exception to everything else America does in its foreign policy,” the adviser said. “When the fighting came, Israel was foolish to think that we could be spared that prospect.”
The cold between the parties appears. In 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington five times. He visited once this year in February but there is no date on the calendar for another visit to the White House, and phone calls have dropped significantly, according to a person familiar with interactions between the two administrations.
“I don’t think we’ve gotten to a worse place,” the man said. “There’s more to come.”
Both people, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to speak openly about sensitivity in relationships.
The White House said the relationship between the United States and Israel remains strong.
“The president and vice president are on the same page: Israel has always been a great ally of the United States, and there has been no greater friend of Israel and champion of peace than President Trump,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said. “The Israel Defense Forces were incredible partners throughout Operation Epic Fury, which reduced the Iranian regime’s military capabilities in 38 short days.”
However, Vance’s warning to Israel was unusually strong.
“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the world who has sympathy for the nation of Israel at this time,” he said during his press conference. “If I were in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not attack the only powerful ally I have left anywhere in the world.
He noted Washington’s significant contribution to Israel’s defense and offered a veiled suggestion that the relationship could change.
“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 the country is in,” he said.
Vance’s office declined to comment, but a person close to his team said the remarks were an acknowledgment of what Vance sees as a new political reality.
“The vice president sees that the mood is turning against Israel among voters, including young Republicans. He is responding accordingly, with nuance rather than stridency,” the person said.
Vance’s remarks surprised some Israeli officials, although they were used to Vance being skeptical of the relationship. One called it “the bottom step.”
Vance has been saying for years, even before becoming vice president, that the interests of Israel and the United States are not always aligned, and that the United States should not be dragged into war with Iran on its behalf. “Israel has the right to defend itself, but America’s interests will sometimes be different,”He said on the podcast in 2024while being Trump’s running mate. “And our intention is not to fight with Iran.”
As a result, Israel has long preferred to deal with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio rather than Vance, a person familiar with the intergovernmental movement said, arguing that the vice president’s skepticism is an edge that could last. Vance’s prominence in the Iran negotiations and the deal that has resulted suggests otherwise.
While the accord with Iran helps the Trump administration achieve its goal of lowering oil prices and reopening shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, it is only an agreement to address Iran’s nuclear program and does not address Israel’s concerns about ballistic missiles and a regime it believes is still committed to Israel’s destruction.
In recent months, Trump has admired, condemned and turned against Israel. But his tone towards the US ally has become harder and more important. He called Netanyahu“f-and crazy,”earlier this month amid his frustration with Israel’s actions in Lebanon that threaten the Iran talks. Later, Netanyahu blocked the planned attacks on Beirut, the kind of restrictions that Vance has been urging all along.
Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said that the Netanyahu government sees the rift, but does not know how much of a break.
“At the leadership level there is great concern…but they underestimate the severity of this moment,” he said.
Even the new system that Israel and Lebanon signed on Fridaycommitted to taking steps to end the conflictit may not be enough to change the path. The agreement binds the two governments but not Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that is fighting Israel. The Lebanese government has historically been unable to do much to change the group’s behavior.
“It really depends on what happens in Lebanon,” Sachs said. “It has made clear different interests. For the United States, the agreement with Iran – whatever it is – Trump has decided that the agreement is in the interests of the United States, and Lebanon is not that close to that importance…For Israel…Lebanon cannot be left as an afterthought.”
And as voters soon weigh in on both sides of the Mediterranean, the gap between what Israel wants from Washington and what Washington will offer is likely to widen.
Netanyahu’s office is trying to focus its displeasure on Vance alone. His government “never trusted him,” said a person familiar with the interaction between the governments. “He is the one pushing for an agreement, he is the one pushing for separation from Israel.”
Netanyahu and his office “do not take everything that is happening now with Trump as the end of everything, because in the same way it can turn, everyone is fully aware of that,” the person said.
Vance’s allies say the vice president and Trump are compatible, even more so now than before Trump made the decision to attack Iran.
“JD was echoing the president, who, by the way, … has been very vocal recently in his criticism of Mrs. both publicly and privately,” another Vance aide said.
Two weeks after condemning Netanyahu, Trump announced at the G7 summit that “without me there would be no Israel.”
Despite all the friction, Israeli officials are still looking at the relationship as a whole, weighing the big gains it has made under Trump — such as ending the war in Gaza and bringing home 20 hostages — against recent problems. They want Washington to keep that full picture in mind, too.
“Trump has done very important and interesting things for Israel,” the Israeli adviser said. For that reason, Israel tends to “give him the benefit of the doubt, give him grace, speak, listen, we can accept the kind of opinions he gives sometimes.”
Vance and others on Trump’s team, meanwhile, have not been spared criticism of Israel. This is evident on Israel’s Channel 14, a pro-Netanyahu television channel known to reflect messages from the prime minister’s office.
Yinon Magal, a late-night talk show host, described Vance in Hebrew as “filth” or “lowlife” and accused Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner of selling out “their brothers in Israel.”
He was asked on the podcastif he believes JD Vance, one of Netanyahu’s main opponents Naftali Bennett replied, “I have not met him, I have not met JD Vance … in general I would say there is a very strong wind in America, similar to isolation before WWII … We must act on this reality.”
Officials in Israel and the United States expect the divide to deepen in the coming months. Netanyahu’s fate at the ballot box in October is now clouded by a White House he can no longer rely on.
“Netanyahu was counting on the fact that Trump would give him full support before the election, and that hasn’t happened yet. It could happen, but it’s not happening now,” said a person familiar with the interaction between the two governments.
The GOP, meanwhile, will see its own battle against Israel play out at the ballot box a month later. Vance’s ambitions for 2028 exceed all – and his record on Iran can only be defended if he can point to the Iran war as the beginning of a new Middle East.
“It’s very interesting to see the vice president put some, if you will, bread of his own thoughts and the path of the future about how he chooses not only to deal with these issues, but also to express them to international, and more importantly, domestic and grassroots audiences,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump appointee to the administration of the State Department.
