Vance: Israel should respond to Hezbollah attacks with ‘conversation,’ not retaliation

Vice President JD Vance urges Israel not to retaliate following each Hezbollah attack and to instead engage in ‘conversation’ to avoid wider war.

By World Israel News Staff

Vice President JD Vance said Monday that Israel could help produce a “more peaceful situation” if it responded to Hezbollah attacks in the context of a new regional deconfliction channel, rather than allowing incidents to spiral into broader escalation.

Speaking after US-Iran talks in Switzerland, Vance said negotiators had made “very good progress” on a mechanism aimed at managing incidents between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

He said the goal was not to deny Israel’s right to respond to attacks, but to create a channel for communication among Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah and other regional parties.

“We want a regional ceasefire, right? We want Hezbollah to stop firing at our friends in Israel. We want Israelis to be able to live in peace. We also want to make sure that, you know, when things happen, they don’t spiral into a broader escalation,” Vance told reporters.

Vance said the mechanism would allow the sides to communicate directly when incidents occur, saying “there really hasn’t been a mechanism to have those discussions until basically [yesterday,] when we set that up.”

The vice president described a scenario in which Hezbollah operatives might launch an unauthorized attack, and said Israel should respond in a way that takes account of the new diplomatic channel.

“Sometimes a junior guy [in Hezbollah] fires a drone that didn’t have approval from the high command. Of course, Israel has to respond to that, but we could have a more peaceful situation if Israel responds in the context of the conversation that is ongoing between Hezbollah, Lebanon, Israel and other partners in the region,” Vance said.

He added that Israel retained the right to defend itself, but said Washington wanted that right exercised alongside efforts to prevent escalation.

“Israel and every other nation in the region has the right of self-defense, but we want to make sure that everybody has that right of self-defense in the background where we’re talking about how to de-escalate these conflicts rather than spiraling out of control,” he said.

The remarks came after the first round of renewed US-Iran talks in Switzerland, where Vance said progress had also been made on nuclear inspections, frozen Iranian assets, ceasefire management and a mechanism to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Vance said the deconfliction mechanism established during talks was intended to prevent incidents from expanding into a wider war, and said the administration had already seen a reduction in violence.

“You’ve already seen the fruits of that,” he said. “Over the past 24 hours have probably been the most peaceful that we’ve seen in Lebanon […] so this is a work in progress, but what we’ve done is actually set up the operation so it doesn’t spiral out of control in the future.”

Asked whether the US wanted Israel to withdraw from its security zone in southern Lebanon, Vance did not answer directly. He said Washington wanted to protect both Israeli security and Lebanese sovereignty.

“We want Israel’s security to be protected, and we also want Lebanon’s sovereignty to be protected. And this is going to be an ongoing conversation,” he said.

“The Israelis have been very clear they do not have territorial intentions on south Lebanon. The reason they feel they have to be there is because they’re worried about Hezbollah fighters in south Lebanon firing into Israel,” Vance said.

He said any arrangement would require the Lebanese Armed Forces to play a role and would also require Iran to restrain Hezbollah.

“We do believe … that we can get to a place where Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty are protected, Israel’s security is protected,” Vance said, according to Al Jazeera. “That’s going to require some coordination with the Lebanese armed forces and also it’s going to require the Iranians to rein in Hezbollah.”

The comments followed several days of public friction between Washington and Jerusalem over Israeli operations in Lebanon and the Trump administration’s push for a broader regional off-ramp.

Vance and President Donald Trump have criticized Israeli retaliation against Hezbollah attacks as disproportionate, while Israeli leaders have argued that the IDF must continue operating in southern Lebanon until Hezbollah is disarmed and pushed away from the border.

Lebanon is meanwhile entering a new round of direct talks with Israel in Washington. Reuters reported that Beirut is seeking a timetable for Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon, while Israel says the goal of the talks is Hezbollah’s disarmament and a broader peace agreement.

“There remains a fundamental problem of trust between us and the Israelis in these talks. We cannot fulfill their demands, and they reject all of ours,” a Lebanese official told Reuters.

HezbollahJD VanceLebanon