The White House is growing increasingly frustrated with Israel just two weeks after President Donald Trump triumphantly announced a deal to end the war in Gaza and bring peace to the Middle East.
The mounting frustrations come as a succession of senior officials are passing through Israel this week looking to keep a fragile ceasefire in place. They see some recent developments — the Israeli Defense Force’s counter-attack in Gaza on Sunday, and the Knesset’s vote in favor of West Bank annexation, which Trump has ruled out — as detrimental to the already fragile agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Vice President JD Vance delivered a “firm message” from President Donald Trump during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the conversation who were granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
After assuring the U.S. that its response to a Hamas attack on two Israeli soldiers would be careful and limited, the counter-attack on Sunday left more than 40 civilians dead. Senior U.S. officials expressed their frustration about the severity of the attack, telling one Arab ally that Israel was “out of control,” one of the two people familiar with the conversation said.
The administration’s private exasperation has begun to emerge in public view. Trump, in an interview published on Thursday, suggested Israel could lose all U.S. support if it annexed the West Bank, which followed condemnations from Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
That so many administration officials criticized Israel so unequivocally less than two weeks after Trump landed to a hero’s welcome and promised eternal friendship and peace underscores how frustrated the White House is with the Netanyahu government.
The public comments “reflect how the president feels” about the matter, said a White House official, granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking.
Still, the White House is working to keep the fragile truce in place, dispatching several senior officials to the Middle East this week to meet with Arab partners and Israel’s leaders.
“The president’s peace plan is working and the administration is working closely with Israel to implement it,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly. “The official visits by the president’s top-tier team reflects his commitment to doing the hard work required to do something in Gaza that has never been done, and to sustain an everlasting peace in the Middle East.”
Vance, speaking to reporters before departing Israel on Thursday, expressed confidence that “we’re on a very good pathway” toward cementing the phase one peace agreement and moving into phase two.
Netanyahu, seemingly aware and fearful of Trump’s anger, issued a statement expressing his own opposition to the Knesset’s vote.
“The Knesset vote on annexation was a deliberate political provocation by the opposition to sow discord during Vice President JD Vance’s visit to Israel,” the prime minister’s office said. “The two bills were sponsored by opposition members of the Knesset.” Notably, however, he issued the statement in English first, signalling it was targeted at a foreign audience.
Netanyahu faces a tough balancing act. He will need the backing of the parties supporting annexation in next year’s elections, which could happen as soon as March and must take place by October. At the same time, a public break with Trump would cost him significantly at the ballot box. Trump is widely popular in Israel and images of the pair together have been a fixture of Netanyahu’s past campaigns.
Trump’s promise to Arab leaders that Israel would not annex the West Bank came during a meeting at the United Nations, the same meeting where, according to Trump officials, he solidified the plan that ultimately brought about the peace deal he celebrated last week.
Trump, asked about the Knesset’s vote Thursday afternoon, brushed off the possibility that Israel would try to annex the West Bank. “Don’t worry about the West Bank, okay?” Trump said. “Israel’s not going to do anything with the West Bank.”
But just hours earlier, Vance derided the Knesset vote as a “very stupid stunt,” criticizing Israel’s government on its soil shortly after meeting with Netanyahu.
“I personally take some insult to it,” he said.
A person close to the vice president said the meeting with Netanyahu was instructive and positive.
Rubio, who arrived in Israel Thursday, told reporters before leaving Washington that he, too, was dismayed by the vote given Trump’s promise to Arab leaders before the Gaza peace deal came to fruition that he wouldn’t allow Israel to annex the West Bank.
“We think it’s potentially threatening to the peace deal,” Rubio said. “They’re a democracy, they’re going to have their votes, people are going to take these positions, but at this time it’s something that especially we don’t — we think it might be counterproductive.”
