JD Vance, Donald Trump’s pick for vice-president, has a strong record of support for Israel.
The 39-year-old lawyer, who was elected to the US senate representing Ohio last year, was once a vocal critic of Trump, but has since aligned himself with the former president’s policies – and even finds himself to Trump’s right on some issues.
Vance, though a non-interventionist on foreign policy has been willing to bend his “America First” policy when it comes to Israel. “I’m very supportive of Israel and their war against Hamas,” he explained in a speech at the Quincy Institute in May.
But while comparing Israel with Ukraine and expressing admiration for the Ukrainians in their fight against Russia, he has said he did not think that “it is in America’s interest to continue to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine”.
His pro-Israel stance comes from his Christian faith. A convert to Catholicism in 2019, he derived his support from the fact that Jesus “was born and died and resurrected in that narrow little strip of territory on the Mediterranean”. He has said, “The idea that there is ever going to be an American foreign policy that doesn’t care a lot about that slice of the world is preposterous,” he said.
The potential VP, whose role was announced yesterday, has also advocated for a close relationship between the US and Israel, citing deep cultural and religious ties between the two nations.
Their relationship was “an expression of deeper things, of cultural affinity and shared heritage and values,” he said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post in 2022. Speaking about the danger Iran could pose to the US, he called Israel “our most important ally”.
Since the October 7 attacks, his backing for Israel has been unequivocal. In an interview with CNN in May, he said: “I think that our attitude vis-a-vis the Israelis should be, look, we’re not good at micromanaging Middle Eastern wars, the Israelis are our allies, let them prosecute this war the way they see fit”.
Although expressing concern over the number of civilian casualties in Gaza, Vance has argued that Hamas bore sole responsibility. The only solution, he said, was dismantling Hamas as a “viable military organisation”.
The Republican senator has also criticised the pro-Palestine encampments in Universities across the US. In a post to social media, he said: “I don’t care what your cause is, whether you’re pro- or anti-Israel or anything else. You don’t get to turn our public places into a garbage dump. No civilisation should tolerate these encampments. Get rid of them”.
He went so far as to introduce a bill in the Senate that would bar colleges from receiving federal financial assistance if they did not remove encampments from campus.
But Vance has also expressed concerns over Israeli military policy – largely over what he sees as “deep fissures in Israel’s support around the world” and urged Israel to avoid making the same mistakes he believed the US made after 9/11.
His long-term position on Israel has been to expand the Abraham Accord peace deals signed during the final year of Trump’s presidency in 2020. He told CNN that “our goal in the Middle East should be to allow the Israelis to get to a good place with the Saudi Arabians and other Gulf Arab states”. This would be“the perfect way of building a counterpoint to the Iranians in the Middle East”.
As for working toward a two-state solution, he said he would defer to Israel on that.
But on antisemitism, his record is more complex. While emphasising the importance of prosecuting antisemitic crimes more strongly, Vance has failed to co-sponsor two bi-partisan bills that aimed to tackle it.
The senator has also come under fire for employing what some have called antisemitic dog whistles. In 2022, he claimed that Jewish philanthropist George Soros would send “a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California”.
Ohio representative Casey Weinstein, a Jewish Democrat, said the comment played into “an old antisemitic trope that Jewish people are masterminds that are, in particular, rich and powerful, that are controlling world events behind the scenes.” Vance’s remarks regarding Soros are not surprising, considering Trump’s invocation of the Soros-puppeteer conspiracy in his fundraising emails.
Vance has also on occasions failed to criticise antisemitism when it comes from the right. After the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017, Vance said “This neo-Nazi movement is actually really driven by well-to-do, middle-class folks, people who have a good education”.
In 2022, when running for the Senate, Vance accepted an endorsement from Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. A leading far-right figure, she has been criticised for playing into antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Howie Beigelman, chief executive of Ohio Jewish Communities, has nonetheless commended Vance for his respect for the local Jewish community. “He’s always met with Ohio’s Jewish community, always taken meetings with pro-Israel advocates and given us probably the most unvarnished legislative truths,” he posted on social media.
In the key swing states Trump – and now Vance – will be targeting Jewish voters who make up between 1 per cent and 3 per cent of the electorate.
American Jews largely vote Democrat – recent polls suggest they support Biden over Trump by 64 per cent to 24 per cent. But there has been a slight shift toward Republicans compared to previous years in the American Jewish community.
