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  "path": "/partner/vance-slams-israeli-critics-irandeal",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-18T17:41:37.000Z",
  "site": "https://nukta.com",
  "textContent": "\n\n\n\nU.S. Vice President JD Vance on Friday issued a sharp rebuke to Israeli cabinet ministers criticizing the U.S.-Iran deal, warning them not to alienate their \"only powerful ally.\" The comments came amid growing tensions between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump over the agreement and Israel's continued military operations.\n\n#### What did JD Vance say to Israeli critics of the Iran deal?\n\nVance told Israeli cabinet members criticizing the agreement to \"wake up and smell the reality.\" He said that attacking the United States, the country providing two-thirds of the defensive weapons protecting Israel over the previous three months, made little strategic sense. He added that anyone who believed their biggest problem was President Trump was misreading the situation.\n\n#### Which Israeli officials did Vance call out by name?\n\nIn a _New York Times_ interview published Thursday, Vance directly named national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich as having attacked the deal. He challenged both men to articulate an alternative strategy, saying: \"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 separately credited Netanyahu for not personally criticizing the agreement.\n\n#### How did Vance defend the U.S.-Iran deal to reporters?\n\nSpeaking at a White House briefing, Vance acknowledged that some Israeli officials had attacked the deal and, in his words, \"very personally attacked the president of the United States.\" He underscored the scale of American military support, saying two-thirds of the defensive weapons that had protected Israel over the past three months were built by American hands and paid for by American taxpayers. He framed the criticism from within Netanyahu's cabinet as a strategic miscalculation given that dependence.\n\n#### What has Trump said about Israel's military conduct?\n\nTrump has grown increasingly critical of the high death toll from Israeli attacks, particularly against Hezbollah in Lebanon. Speaking at the G7 summit in France on Wednesday, he said that a response of knocking down buildings in Beirut was disproportionate when two drones landed harmlessly in the desert. \"They could behave better, and frankly they could do a better job,\" Trump said. The two countries jointly launched military operations against Iran on February 28, but Trump has since chastised Israel for continuing strikes on Lebanon that threatened to derail the Tehran agreement.",
  "title": "Vance slams Israeli critics of US-Iran deal and warns them not to alienate their ‘only ally’"
}