An opinion piece by Channel 14 presenter and commentator Yaara Zerd says U.S. Vice President JD Vance has shifted from promoting last week’s Iran agreement as a success to attacking Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. The article argues that the deal, signed with Iran last week, is a major failure for the Trump administration and harmful to Israel, despite Vance’s attempts to sell it as an achievement.
Zerd claims Vance believes Israeli public opinion is shaped by Haaretz and Channel 12, and therefore thinks the way to change the conversation is by targeting Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. She says that does not erase what she describes as an earlier effort to portray Iran’s regime as “rational” and Hezbollah as equivalent to Israel, which she calls Israel’s closest U.S. ally.
The piece says Hezbollah remains Iran’s main military arm in the Middle East and continues to threaten Israeli civilians and troops. It condemns any comparison between Israel, described as a democracy defending its citizens, and Hezbollah, described as a terror group financed and directed by Iran. The commentary also says Israel has not turned southern Lebanon into a terror base, but Hezbollah has built a missile arsenal aimed at civilians.
Zerd writes that Israel paid a heavy price over the weekend, with five IDF soldiers killed in combat and five families joining the bereaved. She says Israelis do not want war, but cannot ignore Hezbollah’s threat, and argues that Vance is repeating a dangerous pattern by blaming those under attack rather than the force that funds and uses terror. The article ends by predicting that Vance will be embarrassed over the remaining two years of his term and that his dream of becoming U.S. president will fade.
