{"id":2572,"date":"2026-06-21T04:37:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T04:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=2572"},"modified":"2026-06-21T04:37:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T04:37:17","slug":"michael-goodwin-trump-and-vance-are-rattled-on-iran-and-their-attacks-on-israel-prove-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=2572","title":{"rendered":"Michael Goodwin: Trump and Vance are rattled on Iran \u2014and their attacks on Israel prove it"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

An essential and great ally one day, road kill the next. <\/p>\n

Such is Israel\u2019s topsy-turvey relationship with the Trump White House.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The wild swings offer the clearest example yet of how widespread criticism of the generous deal with Iran is rattling the administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Incredibly stupid\u2019 Knicks fan dumps trash onto the street to steal blue and orange trashcan<\/a><\/p>\n

As dizzying events demonstrate, Trump himself is riding an emotional roller coaster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Axios, citing administration insiders, reports that the president unloaded on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Monday phone call.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re f\u2013king crazy. You\u2019d be in prison if it weren\u2019t for me. I\u2019m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this,\u201d the outlet quoted the president as saying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From there, the job of beating up the Jewish state was left to Vice President JD Vance, who fired off a series of extraordinary insults.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He started in a White House press briefing notable for his brutal scolding of Israeli critics with language that tracked Trump\u2019s Netanyahu tirade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDonald 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 the head of state of the world\u2019s superpower,\u201d the Veep declared.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cthe 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. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Aren\u2019t we allies?\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Treating Israel as a nation of ingrates was bad, but worse charges were yet to come as Vance defended the beleaguered memorandum of understanding by insisting that Israel and Iran should be treated equally in key ways.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As when he said, \u201cIsrael doesn\u2019t give up the right of self-defense if Hezbollah fires rockets or drones at Israel. The Iranians don\u2019t give up the right of self-defense in their country.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then, \u201cit\u2019s very simple. You can\u2019t tell a country, whether Israel or Iran, they\u2019re not allowed to have any self-defense.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His logic is absurd on its face, because America went to war with three stated goals: destroying Iran\u2019s nuclear program, diminishing its missile stockpiles and ending its support for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And yet here is Vance acting as if Israel, our mighty and loyal ally, is a problem for the sin of defending itself against Hezbollah.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He neglects the key fact, which is that the terror group, sworn to the destruction of Israel, has taken over Lebanon and hides behind civilians in schools and apartment buildings as it fires rockets and missiles into northern Israel cities and towns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Twisting the knife, Vance talks in ways that would make jihadists proud. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat gets the President frustrated sometimes is that we seem to be right on the cusp of a major breakthrough in the agreement,\u201d he said, \u201cand then all of a sudden there\u2019s a major explosion that goes off in a civilian population center in Beirut, and a lot of people who have nothing to do with Hezbollah lose their lives. That\u2019s not acceptable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once again, he failed to note any difference between terrorists and the Israeli defense forces. He followed that with more even-handed mush.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not want Hezbollah attacking Israel, but in order to ensure that happens, we have got to actually build the kind of regional framework that can cut off the money to Hezbollah, cut off Iranian support for Hezbollah, and also ensure that Lebanon\u2019s territorial sovereignty is respected by all parties.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He neglected to say that Hezbollah\u2019s very existence and presence is a violation of Lebanon\u2019s sovereignty.\u00a0<\/p>\n

His habit of false equivalence reveals that no disarming or dismantling of Hezbollah is likely.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Knicks NBA champ Landry Shamet goes incognito on the subway<\/a><\/p>\n

Trump used similar words at the G7 summit in Europe, suggesting that Iran having missiles was not a reason to block the deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf other countries have them, it\u2019s a little bit unfair for them not to have some,\u201d he insisted. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and they all have some, I would say that in relative proportion, I think it\u2019s OK.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Somebody ought to check the White House water.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Trump used a public appearance Friday to reverse his tone on Netanyahu.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe fought very well with Israel, and we\u2019ve had a great relationship with Israel,\u201d he said, calling Netanyahu a \u201cwarrior prime minister.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey should give him credit,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe really fought hard with Israel.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Vance, however, didn\u2019t get the memo that there was a new message. <\/p>\n

In a podcast, he dug himself into a deeper hole by raising the canard of dual loyalty of American supporters of Israel, accusing them of failing to separate US and Israeli interests, saying \u201cthey\u2019re not always the same.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Oh, please.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He compounded the insult by saying there is a wide tendency of \u201calways conflating criticism of a particular government with Jew hatred, because if everything is Jew hatred, then nothing is Jew hatred,\u201d he told podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Asked whether the growing criticism of Israel in the GOP was \u201ca bigger problem than the \u2018Israel first crowd,\u2019 \u201d Vance ducked.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI see both, and I think both are bad,\u201d he insisted, saying he was trying to defend the deal \u201cand I find often the arguments are, \u2018Israel doesn\u2019t think this is good, therefore it\u2019s bad.\u2019 \u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

If he hopes to be a serious presidential candidate in two years, he must stop sounding like he\u2019s channeling Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.\u00a0<\/p>\n

From there, Vance was off to the races again, saying \u201cIsrael\u2019s opinions matter, but fundamentally they are separate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After acknowledging that much of the Israeli political system and population are unhappy with the deal, he said, \u201cBut I also think they\u2019re picking up on some misinformation about the deal and running with it and sort of panicking about it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Insulting\u00a0<\/h2>\n

That was insulting enough, but he wasn\u2019t finished, saying, \u201cI find this whole freakout in Israel a little bit odd because I think that it comes from a place of mistrust.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

A timely example of that mistrust made a dramatic appearance on Friday\u2019s front page of an Israeli newspaper owned by Miriam Adelson, a longtime Trump megadonor who gave his last campaign a reported $100 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Israel Hayom bannered the letter, which accuses the president of \u201cbetraying\u201d Israel.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,\u201d veteran writer Danny Zaken said in addressing Trump. <\/p>\n

He called the deal \u201ca surrender agreement with a murderous and cruel terror regime\u201d and warned that \u201cyou turned over the hourglass toward the next war, which your successors will have to deal with in the years to come.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Trump now has a 60-day window to finalize a stronger, better deal. <\/p>\n

He and Vance also must treat their allies like friends and realize that, despite the pounding it took, Iran remains an Islamist autocracy hell-bent on regional domination.<\/p>\n

Read more Brazil football boss allegedly uses federation funds to fly mistress to NYC before meeting up with wife for World Cup opening ceremony<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An essential and great ally one day, road kill the next.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-michael-goodwin","category-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\nMichael Goodwin: Trump and Vance are rattled on Iran \u2014and their attacks on Israel prove it - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=2572\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Michael Goodwin: Trump and Vance are rattled on Iran \u2014and their attacks on Israel prove it - 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