More than a hundred House Democrats voted on Wednesday to strip $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel, one of the sharpest breaks yet in a bipartisan consensus that held for half a century.
Of the House’s 212 Democrats, 103 voted yes, 98 voted no, and 10 voted present. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi voted the same way as progressive Ayanna Pressley as the Democratic leadership split three ways.
But the more striking rupture this week came from inside the Republican administration itself. Vice President JD Vance told podcaster Joe Rogan that people inside the Israeli government have been running a manipulation campaign to derail the ceasefire Washington negotiated with Iran, because they wanted the war to continue.
“…We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are manipulating and trying to change American public opinion to keep the war going on indefinitely,” Vance said.
Weeks earlier, asked by CBS whether the Israeli leader had mishandled the relationship with Washington, Vance said Netanyahu “aggressively asserts the interests of his country,” which sometimes align with those of the US and sometimes do not.
Remarks like these signal something deeper than a one-off disagreement, according to political analyst Klaus Jurgens.
“The decades-old accepted notion that, no matter the issue, Washington supports Israel is comparable to Germany’s ‘Staatsräson,’ it was non-negotiable. Powerful Israeli lobbyists worked behind the scenes to keep it that way,” Jurgens tells TRT World.
“But let us be frank and clear: they bankrolled both the GOP and Democrats; that is the real reason… not American love for Israel, but American politicians’ love for Jewish donations.”
“Declaring that Israel is attempting to influence US politics is a vital step to curtailing, and one day ending, Israeli influence on US domestic and foreign policy. MAGA means independence, including from Israel,” Jurgens adds.
Trump’s frustration with Netanyahu
The friction started well before Vance went on Joe Rogan. In early June, reports emerged that Trump had cursed at Netanyahu on a call over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon, accusing him of ingratitude and demanding to know what he was doing as the strikes threatened to derail the administration’s Iran negotiations.
The Israeli paper Maariv reported Trump went further in private, calling Netanyahu an “ungrateful bastard.”
Vance himself confirmed the rift was real when CBS asked him, in a June interview, whether Netanyahu had made mistakes in handling the relationship with Washington.
“He’s certainly gotten some things wrong,” Vance said, declining to elaborate beyond saying such disagreements were better left private.
By June 18, the vice president wasn’t keeping it private anymore.
Standing in the White House briefing room, Vance warned Israeli officials directly against opposing the ceasefire framework Trump had just signed with Iran, telling reporters that if he were in the Israeli cabinet, he might think twice before attacking the only powerful ally Israel has left in the entire world.
It was the first time a senior official in this administration inverted a decades-old assumption that Israel could break publicly with a US president and still expect Washington to bend.
Jurgens sees nothing surprising in this.
“The NATO Ankara Summit further cemented Washington’s interest in returning to the global power stage. Anyone seen as a potential threat to that newfound image of strength is considered politically toxic,” Jurgens says.
“Trump and Vance would rather tell Netanyahu what to do; it is no longer the other way round.”
“Continued military assistance to Israel will soon be conditioned on Washington having a clear say in how it is actually used. My guess: it will of course continue, but be much more conditional,” he adds.
The friction has a Türkiye dimension too. Trump was angered after Netanyahu publicly criticised a proposed US sale of F-35 fighter jets to Türkiye during a Fox News interview, just before Trump travelled to Ankara for the NATO summit on July 7-8, according to Axios.
