Vance lashed out at Israeli critics of the Iran deal in June, saying President Donald Trump is Israel’s only ally, in a sharp rebuke that referenced the billions in US defence support the country receives.
Israeli senior officials, speaking anonymously, have said the deal’s terms were bad for Israel because they failed to address concerns over Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, a view they say is shared across Israel’s leadership.
When asked if he thought the US would have engaged in the most recent war with Iran were it not for Israeli influence, Vance said, “yes, yes I do.”
“I think the president, separate from any influence from Israel, believes very strongly, and again I agree with this, that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon,” Vance said.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Vance also expressed frustration at Americans and others who say you cannot negotiate with the Iranians, despite Trump saying last week that Iranians were liars and scum and that dealing with them was a waste of time.
In the same podcast, Vance referenced a Time magazine report about Brad Parscale, who briefly ran Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, and his company Clock Tower X being funded by Israel to conduct an influence campaign on social media.
“I definitely think you have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiation and try to derail the deal. And there was, again, there is this Time article that came out yesterday — a friend sent it to me — it is worth reading because it lists a bunch of people who have quite literally been paid by a former Trump campaign person, who was himself paid by certain elements within the Israeli government,” Vance said.
“It’s social media posts. It’s, you know, they’re leaking to reporters. They are attacking, obsessively saying that we should not be negotiating with Iran, that we should just keep the military campaign going indefinitely. And that is their explicit position,” the US vice president added.
Asked whether President Trump backs his vice president’s condemnation of an Israeli “influence operation”, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said: “I think the President would certainly agree that yes, foreign countries certainly do try to persuade American public opinion. There’s no doubt about that. I think it’s just a basic fact.”
