Trump and Vance are now doing to Israel what they previously did to Ukraine

Some things are happening on the right wing in the United States that only a few years ago seemed unthinkable.

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In the last few hours, we have learned the text of the "Memorandum of Understanding" signed by the United States and Iran to end hostilities between the two countries. This agreement, among other things, includes "at least $300 billion" to be provided by the US and its regional partners to Iran for the country's reconstruction and development, and also commits "to refrain from interfering in each other's internal affairs."

These are outrageous concessions to a dictatorship that has murdered tens of thousands of Iranian citizens for demanding freedom for their country, a dictatorship that will continue to exercise its criminal power over the Persian people. This agreement has provoked understandable displeasure in Israel, the United States' main ally in the region, which has suffered for decades from attacks by Iran and from terrorism financed and supported by that Islamist dictatorship. The Jewish state, the only real democracy in the Middle East, sees how Trump rewards a terrorist regime simply for promising to cease its violence, a promise that has no credibility, like all those made by that dictatorship for many years.

Yesterday, in another of his outrageous statements, US Vice President James David Vance launched a furious attack against Israel, blatantly lying about the origin of Israeli military resources and claiming that members of the Israeli government "very personally attacked the president of the United States," which is a hoax. Obviously, Vance isn't speaking for himself: he's speaking on behalf of Trump and doing so to defend a humiliating deal.

But beyond his eagerness to defend that agreement, Vance's attack on Israel also has an electoral explanation. Many conservatives have welcomed the US military intervention in Iran, a show of strength against a terrorist regime, which I defended here despite my differences with the current US president. However, that intervention provoked a backlash from Trump's most isolationist supporters, especially the MAGA movement, where alarming outbreaks of antisemitism are being recorded, spearheaded by propagandists like Tucker Carlon and Nick Fuentes, who, coincidentally, are two well-known defenders of Vladimir Putin's dictatorship. Trump and Vance seem to want to curry favor with MAGA ahead of the November 3rd House elections. Perhaps that's why Vance's attack won't be the last one we see from the Trump administration soon, with exceptions like Marco Rubio, a representative of the Atlanticist and pro-Israel right, and whose discomfort with the Iran deal became very clear yesterday.

It must be said that this attack by the Trump administration on Israel is the same as what Ukraine already suffered before, when the current US president decided to drastically change that country's foreign policy with a rapprochement with Putin's dictatorship which even led the US to vote alongside Russia against Ukraine at the UN, a shameful act that now seems to be continuing in the agreement between the US and Iran. A month ago, Trump also made some worrying statements about Taiwan after a meeting with the Chinese communist dictator Xi Jinping. This trend also includes Trump's constant criticism of NATO.

Without a doubt, the MAGA movement will be very pleased by this regrettable turn Trump has taken, because after all, that movement has been feeding off Russian propaganda for years, and we mustn't forget that communist China and Iran are allies of the Kremlin. That movement has thrown the principles of the American conservative right overboard, filling the void with propaganda from the enemies of the West, seasoned with conspiracy theories and now, in addition, with growing antisemitism.

This political and ideological drift not only fails to make the United States greater (remember that Trump's slogan was "Make America Great Again"), but is actually weakening it against enemies like Russia, China, and Iran, by degrading US ties with its Western allies, both Israel and the Europeans. US international alliances have always been an important part of its strength, which consists not only of possessing powerful armed forces, but also of having the capacity to deploy them far and wide, a capacity that requires these alliances.

Since the start of his second term, Trump seems determined to turn all his allies against the USA, with such outlandish ambitions as seizing Greenland and Canada. His regrettable about-face on Ukraine should have been cause for alarm for many, but Trump's most enthusiastic supporters decided to applaud him, just as they have applauded his pronouncements on Greenland and Canada. Now comes the shameful agreement with Iran, and many Trump supporters remain silent, while others attempt impossible balancing acts to continue defending their admired leader no matter what he does. How long will it take now for many right-wing anti-Semites to come out of the closet? Surely as soon as it took in February 2025 for people who claimed to support Ukraine to suddenly lash out against all of us who continue to reject the Russian invasion, simply because Trump had begun his affair with Putin. Vance's attack on Israel is only the beginning of a shameful ideological striptease.

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Photo: The White House. US President Donald Trump with Vice President J.D. Vance in the Oval Office of the White House on August 25, 2025.