On 18 June, JD Vance stood in the White House press briefing room and tore into Israeli critics of the Iran deal that his boss, Donald Trump, had signed the previous day. The vice-president argued that Trump was the only world leader who was still sympathetic to Israel after nearly three years of wars and destruction across the Middle East. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government,” Vance said, “I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left ‌in the entire world.”

Vance also pointed out that, during the recent US-Israeli war on Iran, two-thirds of the defensive weapons used to protect Israel from Iranian retaliation “have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars”. Vance publicly scolded Israel’s leaders in a way they have rarely been criticized by a high-level US politician. And while Vance did not directly target his criticism at the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the subtext was clear: the Trump administration is willing to call out the Israeli leader for sabotaging ceasefire agreements so that he could prolong regional wars and maintain power.

Over the past few weeks, Trump and several of his advisers have told reporters (or strategically leaked) that the president has had enough of Netanyahu’s obstinacy and resistance to a ceasefire with Iran. In a recent phone call, Trump reportedly called the Israeli premier “fucking crazy” – and the president himself later told Axios that Netanyahu “has no fucking judgment”. On 7 June, Trump told the Financial Times that Netanyahu had no choice but to accept the ceasefire: “I call all the shots. He doesn’t call the shots.”

Trump and his aides played this game before, leaking their supposed displeasure with Netanyahu but not following through by withholding the US weapons that enabled Israel to continue its wars in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere. After the October 2023 Hamas attacks,........

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