J.D. Vance didn\u2019t call Benjamin Netanyahu out by name, but in sternly reprimanding the \u201cCabinet of the Israeli government\u201d from the White House podium on Thursday, he sent Israel and its Prime Minister a very clear and ominously familiar message. In demanding more respect, raising the threat of severe consequences and ordering the country to get in line, the Vice President was echoing the public fight he picked with another world leader and one-time US ally: Volodymyr Zelensky.<\/p>\n
And just like that fiery chastisement last February, Vance went further in his criticism than any other US President or Vice President in recent memory. He was irritated with Israeli Cabinet members, including Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have criticized President Trump\u2019s proto-peace deal. They say it will hand billions of dollars to Tehran and fail to guarantee Israeli security. Ben-Gvir says that Israel is not bound by it.<\/p>\n
Vance, to the world\u2019s press, declared: \u201cWhat I will say, and this does bother me, is that you\u2019ve seen people within Bibi\u2019s cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal and in some ways very personally attacked the President of the United States and I guess my message to them would be two-fold.<\/p>\n
\u201cNumber one Donald J. 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 head of state of the world\u2019s 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 word. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the second message I would give to those Cabinet members, Bibi to his credit has not gone down this path, but to some of these cabinet members in Israel who are attacking the president of the United States, the other thing that I would say is that 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.\u201d <\/p>\n
The message was clear: Netanayahu must get his government in line \u2013 or else. Just look at what happened to Ukraine, went unsaid but tacitly understood. Bibi was damned by the faintest of praise.<\/p>\n
The relationship between America and Ukraine was already falling apart by the time of the infamous White House clash last year. When Zelensky demurred on negotiating with Russia, Vance warned that not engaging with Trump\u2019s peace plan for the region would result in \u201cthe destruction of your country.\u201d He tore a strip off Zelensky for being insolent, \u201cMr President, with respect, I think it\u2019s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. <\/p>\n
\u201cHave you said \u2018thank you\u2019 once this entire meeting?\u201d he asked. \u201cOffer some words of appreciation for the United States of America and the president who\u2019s trying to save your country.\u201d<\/p>\n
After that bruising encounter, the Trump administration axed military aid to Ukraine and stopped intelligence sharing. Ukraine was forced to go cap in hand to European countries and to become an arms exporter to make up the revenue shortfall. A year later, that strategy appears, at least, to have been successful. Europe has provided \u20ac160 million funding since Trump cut US aid and Zelensky has signed numerous contracts to export Ukrainian arms to other countries.<\/p>\n
Teflon Trump, the master of the scapegoat, will have the choice of two easy victims to pin the blame on if his plan veers off the rails<\/p>\n