POLITICO: Vice President JD Vance has become the face of a Washington that no longer treats Israel as the exception to "America First"

When American and Israeli warplanes struck Iran on Feb. 28, Israeli officials let themselves believe the alliance was entering a golden age. Four months later, they are bracing for a future where Israel stands more alone than ever.

The vice president of the United States 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, POLITICO reports.

But the problem for Israel is much bigger than JD Vance, according to seven people, including U.S. and Israeli officials and others familiar with the relationship. Instead, they say, Vance is only the face of the new normal, in which Israel’s status as an American ally doesn’t stand above all others.

The chill between the sides is evident. In 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington five times. He visited once this year in February but there are no dates on the calendar for another White House visit, and phone calls have tapered off considerably, according to a person familiar with interactions between the two governments.

Still, Vance’s warning to Israel was unusually stark.

“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment,” he said during his press conference. “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 noted Washington’s significant contributions to defending Israel and made a veiled suggestion that such a relationship could change.

“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,” he said.

Vance’s office declined to comment, but a person close to his team said the rhetoric is an acknowledgement of what Vance sees as the new political reality.

“The vice president sees that the ground is shifting against Israel among voters, including with younger Republicans. He’s responding accordingly, with nuance instead of stridency,” the person said.

Vance’s comments stunned some Israeli officials, even though they were used to Vance being skeptical of the relationship. One called it a “low point.”

While the memorandum of understanding with Iran helps the Trump administration toward its goal of lowering oil prices and reopening shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, it is only an agreement to talk about Iran’s nuclear program and doesn’t address Israel’s worries about ballistic missiles and a regime it believes remains committed to Israel’s destruction.

In recent months, Trump has charmed, cursed and reversed himself on Israel. But his tone toward the U.S. ally has been noticeably harsher and more critical. He called Netanyahu “f---ing crazy,” earlier this month amid his frustration with Israeli actions in Lebanon that threaten the Iran talks. Afterward, Netanyahu shelved planned strikes on Beirut, the kind of restraint Vance had been urging all along.

Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said that Netanyahu’s government sees the rift, but doesn’t realize how much of a break it is.

“At the leadership level there is deep concern… but they are underestimating the severity of the moment,” he said.

Vance’s allies say the vice president and Trump are aligned, even more so now than before Trump made the decision to attack Iran.

“JD was just echoing the president, who, by the way… has been quite aggressive recently in his criticisms of Bibi both publicly and privately,” said another Vance ally.

Two weeks after he cursed Netanyahu, Trump declared at the G7 summit that “without me there would be no Israel.”

“Netanyahu was banking on the fact that Trump will give him full support before the elections, and that hasn’t happened yet. It may happen, but it’s not happening now,” said the person familiar with interactions between the two governments.

The GOP, meanwhile, will see its own fight over Israel play out at the ballot box a month later. Vance’s 2028 prospects loom over all of it — with his record on Iran only defensible if he can tout the Iran war as the beginning of a new Middle East.

“Very interesting to see the vice president put out some, if you will, bread crumbs for his own thoughts and pathway for the future about how he’s choosing to not just navigate these issues, but also articulate them to international, and then even more importantly, domestic and base audiences,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump appointee to the State Department in the first administration.

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