Vice President JD Vance strongly pushed back on Israeli officials who have criticized the just-signed US-Iranian memorandum of understanding, and whom he said have "very personally attacked the President of the United States."
Vance acknowledged that the comments from members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Cabinet "bother" him, maintaining that President Donald 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," Vance told reporters at the White House.
"Over the last three months, two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars. 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," he added.
Fundamentally, Vance said, "the Israelis, just like everybody else, have to respect this peace process that is fundamentally good for them and good for the entire region."
The comments appear to be a response to public comments delivered by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who have vocally opposed the Iran deal.
Smotrich denounced the deal as "bad for Israel and for the entire free world," saying on US social media company X that the US-Israeli war against Iran "had many achievements in weakening Iran, and they will not go to waste."
Ben-Gvir said the US-Iran agreement does not bind Israel, "and we are an independent and sovereign nation."
"We are not partners in this agreement that does not concern us for our security, and it does not bind us in any way," he wrote on X. "We must not compromise on anything less than the dismantling of Hezbollah; we must not withdraw from any territory that our fighters have conquered and cleared of terrorist infrastructure."
Vance further criticized 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 center in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives. That's not acceptable," he said.
Vance said that in the wake of the Iran deal's signing, the US expects Hezbollah to halt drone and rocket attacks on Israel, and for Israel to refrain from "going wild in Lebanon."
Still, he acknowledged that the US expects there will be "flare-ups from time to time" between Israel and Hezbollah, but said the US would seek to "manage" the violence "through the diplomatic process."
Trump, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, acting as a mediator, signed the agreement Wednesday.
Under the terms of the deal, Iran will immediately reopen the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, while the US will lift its naval blockade, according to the Pakistani leader.
Soon after the US and Israel initiated the war on Feb. 28, Iran closed Hormuz, and American forces later imposed a blockade on Iranian ports -- making the passage of commercial ships through the critical waterway nearly impossible.
