JD Vance Defends Iran Understanding and Rebukes Smotrich and Ben Gvir

US Vice President JD Vance defended the memorandum of understanding signed between Washington and Tehran in an interview Thursday with The New York Times, while responding to Israeli anger over the deal. He criticized Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, saying they objected to the agreement but offered no alternative for ending the conflict with Iran.

Vance said he found the reaction in Israel unusual and based on distrust. “I feel there is some strange panic inside the Israeli system,” he said, arguing that people seem to assume any step that could help Iran will happen without any change in Iranian behavior. He added, “Do they really think we would lift sanctions on Iran if they are still funding a terrorist organization?” He also said the claim that the US struck a bad deal was not supported by facts and did not make sense given the depth and length of the relationship between the two countries.

On Israeli criticism, Vance said he did not think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had truly attacked the deal, suggesting Netanyahu may simply know more about its details. But he said politicians such as Ben Gvir and Smotrich had denounced it, and asked, “What exactly is your proposal? You cannot just kill your way out of solving every national security problem you have.”

Later, in a White House briefing, Vance said the moderate camp in Iran, which wants better ties with the West, had recently prevailed in internal debates. He called the memorandum “Trump’s peace plan for Iran,” and said Iran’s nuclear program had been destroyed and it had no enrichment capability. He also said 12.5 million barrels of oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz overnight and Iran did not fire on the ships carrying them.