The Media Line: Vance Says to Israel : ‘ You Can’t Just Kill Your Way’ Out of Security Threats, Defends Iran Keeping Missiles 

Vance Says to Israel : ‘ You Can’t Just Kill Your Way’ Out of Security Threats, Defends Iran Keeping Missiles 

By The Media Line Staff  

US Vice President JD Vance said Thursday that Israel “can’t just kill” its way out of its national security challenges and defended President Donald Trump’s position that Iran should be permitted to retain some ballistic missiles for self-defense under the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Washington and Tehran.  

Vance delivered a series of criticisms of Israel’s military strategy and of Israeli opposition to the MoU, which was signed digitally by President Trump on Wednesday night in Versailles.  

Speaking to The New York Times, Vance characterized Israel’s response to the agreement as a “freakout” stemming from “mistrust.”  

“I find this whole freakout in Israel a little bit odd because I think that it comes from a place of mistrust, and I think that America has earned the trust of that region of the world,” Vance said.  

“We’ve done a very good job by that particular country, and that particular government, and I think that the idea that we’ve made a terrible deal is not supported by the facts, but just doesn’t make any sense if you consider the broad length of the relationship,” he added.  

Vance defended the MoU while indicating that the United States intends to move forward with the agreement without placing heavy weight on Israeli concerns, despite Israel having fought the war alongside the United States.  

He described Israeli concerns over concessions to Iran as a “weird panic” and said any measures favorable to Tehran, including sanctions relief, would be conditioned on Iran’s “behavior.”  

“There is this weird panic almost in the Israeli system that I’ve picked up on where they assume that everything that is contemplated that is good for Iran will happen — but that will happen without the Iranians changing any behavior. And I just don’t know why anybody would think that’s true.”  

While noting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has avoided directly criticizing the MoU, Vance pointed to other Israeli officials, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who have strongly condemned the deal.  

“It’s clear that large segments of the Israeli political system and population are very sensitive about this deal,” he says. “But I also think they’re picking up on some misinformation about the deal and running with it and sort of panicking about it.”  

Addressing Israeli critics of the agreement, Vance said: “I guess my response to them would be: What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.” (Vance incorrectly stated the population of Israel at nine million, when the correct number is 10 million.)  

During a press conference, Vance also defended President Trump’s remark on Wednesday that Iran should be allowed to retain some of its ballistic missiles. He appeared to equate Iran’s right to self-defense with Israel’s.  

“All the president said yesterday is that, of course, regional countries don’t give up the right of self-defense,” Vance says.  

“Israel doesn’t give up the right of self-defense if Hezbollah fires rockets or drones at Israel,” he continues. “You can’t tell the country, whether Israel or Iran, they’re not allowed to have any self-defense.”  

Vance said Israel had destroyed much of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and argued that the agreement would prevent Iran from building “the kind of missiles that can broadly threaten the entire world.”  

“As part of the final deal, what we want to see is Iran not funding regional instability, funding regional terrorism, and of course, [not] trying to rebuild their nuclear weapons program.”