US VP JD Vance warns Israeli critics over Iran deal: Trump is your only ally

United States Vice President JD Vance lashed out at Israeli critics of the ​Iran deal on Thursday, saying President Donald Trump was Israel's only ally, in a sharp rebuke that referenced the billions in US defence aid the country receives.

Vance ‌was defending the deal reached this week to end the war with Iran that critics in the US and Israel have slammed for failing to curb Iran's missile programme and providing no clear path to dismantling its nuclear facilities, while constraining Israel in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Trump has repeatedly criticised longtime ally Israel, spiking tensions nearly four months after the two countries partnered to attack Iran. The war has roiled markets and ​global oil supplies as Tehran responded by closing the critical Strait of Hormuz supply route.

Vance, asked at a White House news briefing about a report that Israeli Prime Minister ​Benjamin Netanyahu was fuming over the agreement, said he had not heard such comments from Netanyahu but criticised members of the Israeli leader's cabinet, ⁠who he said had attacked the deal and personally attacked Trump.

Vance acknowledged that the comments from members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet “bother” him, maintaining that 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 superpower".

"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."

He said he would also remind those cabinet members that two-thirds of the defensive weapons that had protected Israel "have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars". The US provides Israel with roughly $4 billion in military assistance a year, but the two countries are negotiating a new aid agreement.

"The problem for Israel is not Donald J. ​Trump and 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," Vance ​said.

Netanyahu's office and Israel's Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Vance on Lebanon attacks

Vance further criticised Israeli attacks on Beirut that disrupted peace talks with Iran during the final hours of negotiations, describing the resulting harm to civilians as "not acceptable".

"The president is growing frustrated sometimes. We seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement, and then all of a sudden there's a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population centre in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives. That's not acceptable," he said.

Read More: Israeli analysts call Netanyahu ‘liar’, ‘humiliated’ by Trump after US-Iran deal

Vance said that in the wake of the Iran deal's signing, the US expected Hezbollah to halt drone and rocket attacks on Israel, and for Israel to refrain from "going wild in Lebanon".

Tensions grow between US, Israel

Israeli senior officials, speaking anonymously, have said the deal terms were bad for Israel because they failed to ‌address concerns over ⁠Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme, a view they said is shared across Israel's leadership.

Trump tried to play down Israel's concerns during closing remarks on Wednesday at the Group of Seven summit in France. Netanyahu could use a "softer touch" in the fight against Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, Trump said.

In his first comments since the deal, Netanyahu said at a public event that Israel appreciated its relationship with the US but would continue to occupy southern Lebanon to maintain security for citizens living near Israel's northern border.

"This requires maintaining the security strip in southern Lebanon; it requires that we not leave there ​as long as Israel's security needs require it," ​Netanyahu said.

Israel published a map on Thursday ⁠showing an expanded military control zone in southern Lebanon and said it would not rule out carrying out attacks beyond it, challenging the terms of the US-Iran pact.

Vance clashes with far-right minister

Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a linchpin in Netanyahu's governing coalition, has harshly rebuked the US-Iran deal ​and insisted Israeli troops would remain in Lebanon.

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Vance criticised Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in a New York Times interview released ​earlier on Thursday. "What is your ⁠exact proposal? 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," Vance said.

"I find this whole freakout in Israel a little bit odd because I think that it comes from a place of mistrust, and I think that America has earned the trust of that region of the world," Vance said.

Ben-Gvir responded to Vance's ⁠remarks on ​X, saying, "This is the proposal ... To deal with the Nazis of the 21st century, just as the United States ​dealt with the Nazis of the 20th century."

Trump, in a social media post after Vance's remarks on Thursday, said he encouraged everyone in the Middle East to maintain their commitment to allowing negotiations to take place. "We expect a complete ceasefire ​on all fronts, including Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel," Trump wrote.