The neoconservative pundit Mark Levin posted on X on Thursday, “Here’s a novel idea: stop bullying our ally and cozying up to our enemy.”

Megyn Kelly, the influential conservative podcaster, replied, “To which politician could he be talking? I guess we’ll just have to wonder.”

Kelly was being tongue-in-cheek. There was no wondering.

Levin was talking about J.D. Vance. He just didn’t want to name names.

The vice president rocked Washington last Thursday—and infuriated neoconservatives—when he defended the Trump administration’s memorandum of understanding (MOU) deal with Iran at a press briefing. “This does bother me,” Vance said. “You've seen people within Bibi’s cabinet who have come out and attacked the deal and in some ways very personally attacked the president of the United States.”

The Zionist influencer Laura Loomer insisted that “Israel never attacked Trump,” in reply to an X user who had defended Vance. Loomer added that it was just “a blatant lie to appeal to those who hate Israel.”

But Vance wasn’t lying. In media interviews the same week he named Israeli cabinet members who had attacked the MOU and defiantly insisted Israel should disregard it. Vance’s remarks at the press briefing suggest that they should be careful about undermining a deal signed by a mercurial president who can take policy critiques personally.

From the podium, Vance continued, “And I guess my message to them would be twofold.”

“Number one, Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower,” he 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.”

Vance seemed to be putting Israel in its place.

Addressing the Israelis who had lashed out at President Trump’s diplomacy, he continued, “The other thing that I would say is that over the last three months, two-thirds… of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars.”

Vance appeared to be saying that Israel needed the U.S. more than the U.S. needed Israel—and that it should be more grateful for the aid Americans have provided.

In response, Levin wailed, “Why would we pick a fight with Israel?! What is going on?!”

Vance’s words were not standard speech about Israel from an American official, much less a vice president. The represented something markedly different. The independent journalist Glenn Greenwald noted the difference, sharing a clip of Vance’s words. “I just made this my ring-tone,” Greenwald joked. “It could all lead to nothing, or worse (a joint US/Israel resumption of the war),” Greenwald acknowledged. “But there hasn't been a week where American leaders have spoken so sternly, clearly, truthfully and decisively about Israel since… well, perhaps ever.”

Greenwald was referring not just to Vance’s remarks at the press briefing. The same week, he had an interview with the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, in which the vice president responded to MOU critics like Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich. “You've seen people in their system—Ben-Gvir and Smotrich—who've attacked the deal,” Vance told Douthat. “And I guess my response to them would be: What is your exact proposal?”

“You're a country of 9 million people,” he noted. “You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have.”

The Bush-Cheney-flavored Republicans Against Trump X account framed this particular remark as “JD Vance ATTACKS Israel!” A strange reply considering that Vance was actually reacting to Israelis’ rhetorical attacks on U.S.–Iran diplomacy and military attacks across the Middle East.

Questioning Israel in such stark terms in the United States has been deemed “antisemitic” in the very recent past, even grounds for arrest and deportation by the administration in which Vance serves. But now, number two in the administration is candidly questioning the actions and prudence of Israel.

As for charges of “antisemitism” against anyone who challenges Israel’s government, Vance took up that too, telling the Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey, “I do think that sometimes, you know, pro-Israel people in the United States make two critical mistakes. One, on the one hand, is not delineating between America’s interests and Israeli interests, because they’re not always the same.”

Clearly those interests are not always the same, although America’s Zionist ambassador to Israel might disagree, along with others. Nevertheless, this was fresh rhetoric from a high-ranking U.S. official.

Vance continued, “But the second is always conflating criticism of a particular government with Jew hatred, because if everything is Jew hatred, then nothing is Jew hatred. I actually think Jew hatred is very bad.” Vance added, “It’s kind of like how progressives for 20 years called everything racist.”

It is exactly like that. And it’s a common and longstanding tactic by left-wingers—and also neocons—to shut down debate.

“And if everything’s racism, nothing is racism,” Vance finished.

Vance would even say, in the interview with Stuckey, that he considered Israel’s relationship with Israel similar to those with the United Kingdom of France. In other words, not unique or special.

Hawks heads exploded.

The ruthless Zionist Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) responded, “I thought JD’s comments yesterday were absolutely inappropriate and frankly disgusting.” Fine shared on X “ABJD2028” which was taken to stand for “Abandon JD 2028,” as Vance is expected to run for president.

News Nation’s Batya Ungar-Sargon said, “J.D. Vance is out there criticizing Israel, making up fantasies about how it is Israel’s fault and Israel wants Iran to be a failed state… It is disgusting, it is the complete Tucker Carlsonificiation of the vice president of the United States, and it is utterly deplorable.” Ungar-Sargon wrote an entire column on the supposed “Tucker Carlsonification” of Vance.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade said, “Kind of shocked to see J.D. Vance go after Israel yesterday. I wish he would be that tough with Iran.”

Jeremy Boreing of Daily Wire fame also threw Tucker Carlson into the mix, saying Vance needed to “pick a side,” and preferably distance himself from the popular conservative influencer.

Sides? Israel first or America first?

While most of the hawkish pundits and politicians cited here attacked Vance directly, many more have not, and certainly have not gone after Trump himself, who reportedly agrees with what the vice president has been saying and probably asked him to say it. A source told Zeteo news: “Trump LOVED it.”

As red-faced as Mark Levin can get, even his barbs against Vance are mostly passive aggressive. Hawks who have spent at least the last four months pretending MAGA was just another name for neoconservatism—and with solid justification since at least late February—are going to be reluctant to let that narrative fade. They’d prefer to guide MAGA back to hawkism and devotion to Israel, rather than confront the admin in ways that risk angering Trump.

The true fear is that Vance’s recent questioning of the U.S.–Israel relationship offers a preview of a new normal in which Americans can begin to talk and think about Israel like any other country, rather than continuing to participate in something closer to political idolatry.

The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi said that the vice president could be doing something revolutionary: “JD Vance is not changing the conversation about Israel in the US. He is changing the entire paradigm: He is reminding the Israelis that they are alone and—though he doesn’t use this word—much disliked internationally” (emphasis added).

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“Israel should not undermine the only strong friend they have left,” Parsi wrote.

Israel’s current poor standing in the world is a stark reality. The U.S. is a lifeline for Israel, and now America’s vice president is saying this openly, making the Trump administration unlike any other this century. That a conservative administration is the one opening this conversation makes the rhetorical shift especially remarkable. Certainly since 9/11 and even before, neoconservatives have long had a firm grip on what it meant to be a conservative in the United States, with Israel at or near the center of the ideology.

No wonder, then, that the vice president’s comments have so disturbed and outraged the neoconservatives.