Vance: Israel doesn’t control us, we have leverage over them

Vice President Vance pushes back on claims Israel has manipulated Trump, says the president pressured Israel into making concessions to secure the Gaza deal.

By David Rosenberg, World Israel News

Vice President JD Vance pushed back Wednesday on suggestions that Israel has “manipulated” the US to secure American support, while hinting that the Trump administration pressured Israel into making concessions in order to achieve the ceasefire deal with Hamas.

On Wednesday, Vance appeared at an event organized at the University of Mississippi by Turning Point USA, the conservative outreach group founded by Charlie Kirk.

During a question-and-answer session with local students, Vance was asked why the Trump administration has backed continuing military aid to Israel.

The young man, who falsely claimed that Kirk accused Israel of ethnically cleansing Gaza, also challenged aid to Israel on religious grounds, saying Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, and claimed that Judaism promotes the “persecution” of Christians.

In his response, Vance defended the Trump administration’s policies vis-à-vis Israel, emphasizing that “America First” does not mean the US should not pursue alliances.

“First of all, when the president of the United States says ‘America first,’ that means that he pursues the interest of Americans first. That is our entire foreign policy,” said Vance.

“That doesn’t mean you’re not going to have alliances, that you’re not going to work with other countries from time to time.”

“That is what the president believes: that Israel, sometimes they have similar interests to the United States, and we’re going to work with them in that case. Sometimes they don’t have similar interests to the United States.”

Vance added that not only is the administration not being manipulated by Israel, it is the US which exerts its “leverage” over Israel to prod Jerusalem toward policies favored by the US.

“The most recent Gaza peace plan…the President of the United States could only get that peace deal done by actually being willing to apply leverage to the State of Israel.”

“So when people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they are not controlling this president of the United States, which is one of the reasons why we’ve been able to have some of the success that we’ve had in the Middle East.”

The vice president also responded to the man’s question regarding cooperation with non-Christians.

“My attitude is let’s have those conversations. Let’s have those disagreements when we have them. But if there are shared areas of interest, we ought to be willing to do that too.”