Alon Pinkas: JD Vance’s Israel criticism exposes a deepening US-Israel divide

Joining us now from Tel Aviv is Alon Pincas, he is the former Israeli Ambassador and Consul General in New York and is currently a columnist at the New Republic. Let's start off with the comments that the Vice President J.D. Vance was making and directing at Israel. What do you make of them? Well, Rashad, they're unprecedented in their severity, I mean, no sitting U.S. Vice President or President, for that matter, has ever accused Israel of openly running a campaign to undermine American policy. I mean, there have been disagreements in the past, there has been friction in the past, but for a sitting Vice President to come out so vociferously, so clearly and so crudely against Israeli involvement or influence campaign, as he calls it, against the U.S., is truly, truly unprecedented. Now, you have to remember, this comes against the background of a lot of people in the MAGA movement on the right wing of the Republican Party who have accused Mr. Netanyahu of dragging the U.S., manipulating President Trump, swindling the administration into joining this war. So now the Vice President J.D. Vance is accusing Israel of trying to undermine or torpedo an agreement between the U.S. and Iran, and no one came out and denied it, by the way, is quite shocking, is quite surprising and, as I said twice before, unprecedented. So Alon, that begs the question, do you believe him? Yes, I do. I don't know if it's a concerted effort. I don't know that necessarily whomever is running that campaign. He is quoting J.D. Vance, that is, the Vice President, in that podcast with Joe Rogan. He is pointing or directing attention to a former Trump campaign manager. Apparently this goes to the year 2020 and a gentleman by the name of Brad Trasprail, who was the manager of the 2020 Trump campaign. This guy has a PR communications digital influence company called Tower X in Washington, D.C., and he has, in fact, been retained by the Israeli government last September to run a pro-Israel advocacy campaign on social networks. I can only assume that J.D. Vance, Vice President J.D. Vance, is referring to this gentleman. But his accusation, Rashad, is much broader than that, because one guy running a digital campaign can't conceivably undermine an agreement that an American president and an American administration wants done. So he's basically framing a much broader narrative, and that is that the Israeli government and the American administration are not on the same page, as you said previously. In fact, they're not even in the same book. And ever since the ceasefire was announced on April 8th, it's been breached many times, including yesterday and today, we know. But nonetheless, ever since the ceasefire was announced and an MOU was signed in mid-June, the U.S. has been quietly and then not so quietly accusing Israel of trying to undermine such an agreement. That is the context of J.D. Vance's remarks. So, Alon, this also begs another question. To make an unprecedented remark such as this from a sitting vice president, he must surely have also gone through his boss, the president, in order to make it. He must be aware of it. I would imagine you're right. I mean, I think that, look, if he didn't run it through the president, he is absolutely confident that what he is saying is compatible with what the president thinks. Another possibility is, you know, that a vice president can say things that a president feels somewhat uncomfortable saying. And so he has a messenger, a senior messenger, because it is, after all, the vice president. A third possibility is that this is a warning to Mr. Netanyahu, who's been putting out messages in the last two or three days that he intends to travel to Washington next week. I don't know if that's going to happen or not. But nonetheless, it's sort of a, you know, a cautionary remark. Be careful what you say. Be careful how you behave, because we know we know what you're up to. Alon, very quickly, I mean, this also probably does reflect the changing body politic, i.e. of the American public when they are viewing Israel. Is that prism changing? The prism in America is changing for sure. You're asking if the prism is changing in Israel? No, I'm asking about America. You're absolutely right. I mean, you look at consistent polls since more or less November, December 2023. After October 7th, after the Hamas terror attack on October 7th, there was wide support for Israel. But then Israel's reprisal or the scale of its retaliation led to demonstrations and protests and a tectonic shift in American public opinion. You see the Pew Research. You see AP on NORAC. You see Times, New York Times, Sienna. You see Gallup. You see Brookings Institution. You see all those goals. And then, as you mentioned a moment earlier, you see that vote in the House of Representatives were over half of the Democrats that, again, I'm using that term unprecedented, but it is unprecedented. Over half the Democrats voted to curtail military aid. So from an American point of view, the worst is not those who say that the U.S.-Israel alliance should stop. The worst is a majority of Americans who no longer care. And from an Israeli point of view, that's very worrying. And I think that is a structural change in this relationship. Alon, as ever, thank you. Alon Pincus there, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general joining us live there from Tel Aviv. Thank you.