As American and Iranian officials meet in Switzerland to negotiate terms, Chris Bambery examines the impact on the Israeli government

Are we seeing a re-set in the relationship between the United States and Israel?

The memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran has met with a wave of criticism in Israel, particularly because it calls for an end to all violence in the region, including that in Lebanon which Israel has invaded and is occupying much of the south of that country.

But a substantial majority see Iran as another Third Reich ready to unleash another Holocaust at any moment. They don’t want any agreement with it – they want it destroyed.

For Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this is a bitter moment because virtually his whole political career has been centred on destroying the Iranian threat.

However, it is known Trump used expletives against him in a phone call as the deal was being reached over his refusal to stop bombing Beirut. After Israel assassinated a top Hezbollah official in the city Iran had threatened retaliation.

Up until Thursday Netanyahu had stayed mum, leaving it to his far right colleagues in the coalition government, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to attack the memorandum. But then earlier this week Netanyahu said publicly that while Israel appreciated its relationship with the US, it would continue to occupy southern Lebanon.

Israel published a map on Thursday showing an expanded military control zone in southern Lebanon and said it would not rule out carrying out attacks beyond it. This was a direct challenge to the terms of the US-Iran agreement.

That prompted a response from US Vice President, J D Vance, at a White House press conference, using words none of us have ever heard from a senior US leader in relation to Israel (Trump was in France at the G7 summit).

Vance told reporters:

“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 he would also remind those cabinet members that two-thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected Israel ‘have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars’.

The US currently provides Israel with $4bn in military assistance a year, but the two countries are negotiating a new aid agreement.

Vance went on to say:

“The problem for Israel is not Donald J Trump, and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.”

In an interview with the New York Times on the same day, Vance responded to criticisms from Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, saying:

“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.”

He added;

“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.”

There is Vance spelling out the “reality” to Israel. Just in case you think this was a case of the mouse at play while the cat’s away, Donald Trump stated on social media:

“We expect a complete Ceasefire on all fronts, including Lebanon, Hezbollah, and Israel.”

Is this a tiff which the two states can paper over. Perhaps. But it feeds into a profound change in US public opinion where a majority of the population no longer support Israel.

That’s reflected to an extent in Trump’s own party, the Republicans, and in his MAGA base. Among the Democrats support for Israel is a minority sport, especially among younger voters and members. That has not registered with the party leadership, particularly those in charge of foreign policy, who remain firmly pro-Zionist, but when they move on its hard to see the Democrats holding that line.

Meanwhile, the memorandum of agreement between the US and Iran is broadly along the lines I outlined earlier this week. Whatever Trump’s bombast, it represents the worst defeat the US has suffered – more significant than Vietnam in the sense that this occurs in a region of far greater strategic and economic importance than South East Asia at that time.

For Israel it is a nightmare. Iran emerges stronger, and likely to become more so as it imposes a toll on ships passing through the Straits of Hormuz. It retains its ballistic missiles which have regularly penetrated Israel’s missile defences.

Israel is militarily and economically more dependent on the US because of the cost of its “forever wars,” and it must fear another wave of emigration from young professionals.

When Vance says it’s a country of just nine million living in a postage stamp sized state that brings home its vulnerability. The emperor may not be completely naked but his wardrobe is much reduced.