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| JD Vance and Joe Rogan |
I admired his remarkable story of rising from a very
difficult childhood—a broken home, a drug-addicted mother, and life in the
hills of Appalachia -to eventually graduate from Yale Law School, marry a
lovely young woman of Indian descent, author the bestselling memoir Hillbilly
Elegy (which was later made into a successful film), serve in the
military, get elected U.S. senator from Ohio, and ultimately be chosen by
Donald Trump as his running mate. He is now a heartbeat away from becoming the
leader of the free world.
JD Vance has had quite an amazing journey from where he
came to where he is today.
I assumed that his views with respect to Israel were largely
the same as those of the man who chose him as his running mate. During the
campaign, Vance was challenged in an interview by a member of the mainstream
media about why he supported foreign aid to Israel despite his generally
negative view of foreign aid.
I recall being satisfied with his answer at the time. He
responded that he didn’t understand why the journalist asking the question
failed to see that Israel was an obvious exception to that policy.
However, it has been all downhill since then.
Ever since taking office, whenever Israel has come up during
interviews with journalists or podcasters, Vance’s responses have been
troubling. In nearly every case, he has included some criticism of Israel while
phrasing it in a way that gives him plausible deniability against accusations
of being anti-Israel.
I particularly recall one interview in which, responding to
a question about Israel’s military strategy, Vance said:
“What is your exact proposal? You’re a country of 9 million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”
I think he was referring to extremist right-wing Israeli
cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. But the words speak for
themselves. They suggest that accusations portraying Israel’s military campaign
as genocide are not entirely without merit.
Now, Vance’s latest interview with conservative podcaster
Joe Rogan leaves little doubt in my mind about where he really stands.
As reported by the Times
of Israel:
“US Vice President JD Vance fumes at a reported Israeli government-funded influence campaign aimed at criticizing the Trump administration’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Iran war.
‘You have seen this very discreet, extremely well-funded campaign to try to derail the negotiations and try to derail the deal,’ Vance says during an interview with conservative podcaster Joe Rogan.
‘There was this Time article that came out yesterday... It lists a bunch of people who have been paid by a former Trump campaign person who was himself paid by certain elements within the Israeli government, and those people are attacking me viciously for trying to accomplish the negotiation objective that the president set for the country,’ Vance says.”
For someone who could very well become the next president of
the United States to suggest a conspiracy involving unnamed “certain elements”
within the Israeli government is shocking! Referring to them
only as “certain elements” gives him deniability against charges of being
anti-Israel.
Well, I’m not buying it...
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