When American and Israeli warplanes struck Iran on Feb. 28, Israeli officials let themselves believe the alliance was entering a golden age. Four months later, they are bracing for a future where Israel stands more alone than ever.
The vice president of the United States set the stage last week, telling Israel it has almost no friends left in the world, and that it should think hard before turning on the one it has.
But the problem for Israel is much bigger than JD Vance, according to seven people, including U.S. and Israeli officials and others familiar with the relationship. Instead, they say, Vance is only the face of the new normal, in which Israel’s status as an American ally doesn’t stand above all others.
Israel had expected when President Donald Trump came into office that his America First foreign policy would include “an exception” for Israel, said an Israeli political adviser.
“That was never going to hold. We were never going to be able to stay for four years as an exception to everything else America does in its foreign policy,” the adviser said. “When the clash came, Israel was naive to think that we would be able to be exempt from those expectations.”
The chill between the sides is evident. In 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington five times. He visited once this year in February but there are no dates on the calendar for another White House visit, and phone calls have tapered off considerably, according to a person familiar with interactions between the two governments.
“I don’t think we’ve reached the worst place possible,” the person said. “There’s more to come.”
Both people, like others in this story, were granted anonymity to speak candidly about sensitivities in the relationship.
The White House said U.S.-Israel relations remain strong.
“The president and the vice president are on the same page: Israel has always been a great ally to the United States, and there has been no greater friend to Israel and a fighter for peace than President Trump,” White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said. “The Israel Defense Forces were incredible partners throughout Operation Epic Fury, which decimated the Iranian regime’s military capabilities in 38 short days.”
Still, Vance’s warning to Israel was unusually stark.
“Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment,” he said during his press conference. “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 world.
He noted Washington’s significant contributions to defending Israel and made a veiled suggestion that such a relationship could change.
“Anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in,” he said.
Vance’s office declined to comment, but a person close to his team said the rhetoric is an acknowledgement of what Vance sees as the new political reality.
“The vice president sees that the ground is shifting against Israel among voters, including with younger Republicans. He’s responding accordingly, with nuance instead of stridency,” the person said.
Vance’s comments stunned some Israeli officials, even though they were used to Vance being skeptical of the relationship. One called it a “low point.”
Vance has argued for years, even before he was vice president, that Israel’s interests and America’s do not always align, and that the U.S. should not be dragged into a war with Iran on its behalf. “Israel has the right to defend itself, but America’s interest is sometimes going to be distinct,” he said on a podcast in 2024 while he was Trump’s running mate. “And our interest very much is in not going to war with Iran.”
As a result, Israel has long preferred to deal with Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio over Vance, the person familiar with the dynamics between the governments said, wagering that the vice president’s skepticism was a fringe it could outlast. Vance’s prominence in Iran negotiations and the deal that has resulted suggest otherwise.
While the memorandum of understanding with Iran helps the Trump administration toward its goal of lowering oil prices and reopening shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz, it is only an agreement to talk about Iran’s nuclear program and doesn’t address Israel’s worries about ballistic missiles and a regime it believes remains committed to Israel’s destruction.
In recent months, Trump has charmed, cursed and reversed himself on Israel. But his tone toward the U.S. ally has been noticeably harsher and more critical. He called Netanyahu “f—ing crazy,” earlier this month amid his frustration with Israeli actions in Lebanon that threaten the Iran talks. Afterward, Netanyahu shelved planned strikes on Beirut, the kind of restraint Vance had been urging all along.
Natan Sachs, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said that Netanyahu’s government sees the rift, but doesn’t realize how much of a break it is.
“At the leadership level there is deep concern…but they are underestimating the severity of the moment,” he said.
Even a new framework that Israel and Lebanon signed Friday committing to steps toward ending that conflict may not be enough to change the trajectory. The agreement binds the two governments but not Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia that is fighting Israel. The Lebanese government historically hasn’t been able to do much to change the group’s behavior.
“It depends a lot on what happens in Lebanon,” Sachs said. “It’s laid bare fundamentally different interests. For the United States a deal with Iran — whatever it is — Trump has decided the deal is in the American interest, and Lebanon is just not that close to that importance…For Israel…Lebanon cannot be relegated to an afterthought.”
And with voters soon to weigh in on both sides of the Mediterranean, the gap between what Israel wants from Washington and what Washington will give is likely to grow.
Netanyahu’s office is trying to keep the focus of its displeasure on Vance alone. His government “never trusted him,” said the person familiar with interactions between the governments. “He’s the one pushing for an agreement, he was the one pushing for separating from Israel.”
Netanyahu and his office don’t “take everything that is happening now with Trump as the end-all, because in the same way it can turn around, everybody’s fully aware of that,” the person said.
Vance’s allies say the vice president and Trump are aligned, even more so now than before Trump made the decision to attack Iran.
“JD was just echoing the president, who, by the way…has been quite aggressive recently in his criticisms of Bibi both publicly and privately,” said another Vance ally.
Two weeks after he cursed Netanyahu, Trump declared at the G7 summit that “without me there would be no Israel.”
For all the friction, Israeli officials still take a holistic view of the relationship, weighing the considerable benefits it has delivered under Trump — for example ending the Gaza war and bringing 20 living hostages home — against the recent strains. They want Washington to keep that fuller picture in mind, too.
“Trump has done enormously important, impressive things for Israel,” the Israeli adviser said. As a result, Israel tends to “give him the benefit of doubt, give him grace, to say, listen, we can accept the kind of comments he makes sometimes. Because in the end, when it counts, he’s definitely had our back.”
Vance and others on Trump’s team, meanwhile, haven’t been spared from Israeli criticism. That is evident on Israel’s Channel 14, a pro-Netanyahu television station known to reflect messaging from the prime minister’s office.
Yinon Magal, host of a nightly talk show, described Vance in Hebrew as “scum” or a “lowlife” and accused Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner of selling out “their brothers in Israel.”
Asked on a podcast whether he trusts JD Vance, one of Netanyahu’s main challengers Naftali Bennett responded, “I haven’t met him, I’ve not met JD Vance…in general I’d say there is a very strong wind in America, reminiscent of pre WWII isolationism…We have to act in this reality.”
Officials in both Israel and the U.S. expect the divisions to deepen in the months ahead. Netanyahu’s fate at the ballot box in October is now entangled with a White House he can no longer count on.
“Netanyahu was banking on the fact that Trump will give him full support before the elections, and that hasn’t happened yet. It may happen, but it’s not happening now,” said the person familiar with interactions between the two governments.
The GOP, meanwhile, will see its own fight over Israel play out at the ballot box a month later. Vance’s 2028 prospects loom over all of it — with his record on Iran only defensible if he can tout the Iran war as the beginning of a new Middle East.
“Very interesting to see the vice president put out some, if you will, bread crumbs for his own thoughts and pathway for the future about how he’s choosing to not just navigate these issues, but also articulate them to international, and then even more importantly, domestic and base audiences,” said Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump appointee to the State Department in the first administration.
