Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back Sunday against Vice President J.D. Vance’s veiled threat that the United States is Israel’s sole powerful ally “anywhere left in the entire world.”
Mr. Netanyahu told “Fox News Sunday Briefing” that Israel has backing from many other countries.
“We have some other friends, like a small country called India, you know, it has 1.4 billion people and, boy, do we have tremendous support there,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Mr. Vance’s remark, delivered during a press briefing at the White House last month, appeared to signal a new phase in the U.S.-Israel relationship as ceasefire talks with Iran advance.
Israel has refused to withdraw from Lebanon, a key provision in peace negotiations between the United States and Iran. Israel has also continued strikes in southern Lebanon, targeting the terrorist group Hezbollah.
“The Israelis — just like everybody else — have to respect this peace process that is fundamentally good for them and good for the entire region,” Mr. Vance said.
Responding to reports that Israeli leaders aren’t happy with the agreement and are criticizing President Trump, Mr. Vance said, “If I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
He said two-thirds of all the defensive weapons in Israel were built and paid for by the United States.
Mr. Netanyahu told Fox News that he and the vice president “have a very good relationship, but that doesn’t mean I agree with everything he says.”
Mr. Netanyahu called Mr. Trump “the greatest friend we ever had in the White House” and said “I don’t think there’s a rift between us.”
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He pushed back against Mr. Vance’s claim that Israel has no other allies.
“We have many, many friends,” Mr. Netanyahu said, among them countries seeking help from Israeli’s top-notch cybersecurity experts.
“Many leaders, you know, call me up and say, ‘Hey, look, I’ve got this problem with public opinion, but I want you to know we respect you, and can we make some deals, and can you teach us some of the things that your military does, and can we have some of your AI and cyber expertise?’ You know, Israel is the number two country in cyber in the world, and our technology is so good. So the relations are not quite as they appear,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
He defended Israel’s presence in Lebanon.
Mr. Netanyahu said Christian villages in Lebanon “have actually asked to be annexed to Israel because we protect them against Hezbollah fanatics who want to kill them.”
Other groups, including Jews, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, “they’d like to free Lebanon,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
“I hope we can get more peace deals, and I can tell you, if you want to have peace, you better be able to protect yourself against those who want to annihilate you,” he said. “We do that, but in defending ourselves, we’re defending our common civilization — the people who chant death to America.”
Mr. Netanyahu said the uptick in anti-Israel sentiment in the United States on both the left and the right concerns him.
“And to the extent that we can do something to mend it, obviously I’ll do it. But I find that there’s something unique about these attacks, and that something is that the people who hate Israel end up hating America, Mr. Netanyahu said. “When they do the protest, they burn Israeli flags, and very often right next to them they burn American flags.”
