Vice President Vance, Heritage’s Kevin Roberts Distance from Israel, Double Down on Christ – The Editors | Ira Stoll

Two significant figures in Republican politics, Vice President Vance and the president of the Heritage Foundation, Kevin Roberts, are distancing themselves from Israel and its American supporters while emphasizing America’s Christian character.
The moves come as the Democratic Party’s nominee for mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, has been running a boycott-Israel, arrest Prime-Minister-Netanyahu campaign that has attracted endorsements from mainstream Democratic figures such as the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, and the Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries.
Taken together, they suggest that the U.S.-Israel relationship may be headed for turbulence. Some of Israel’s supporters have comforted themselves that while Democratic support may be eroding, Republican backing remains strong. Yet the recent statements by Vance and Roberts indicate that the two major parties, who once competed for pro-Israel votes, may be moving toward a new phase of competing for anti-Israel votes, especially those of younger Americans indoctrinated by social-media streaming stars on TikTok, X, and other platforms.
Vice President Vance’s remarks came Wednesday October 29 at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi.
Repeatedly throughout the hourlong appearance, Vance dwelled on Christianity. In responding to two questioners at the event, he also addressed Israel and the U.S.-Israel relationship.
“I really believe that one of the reasons why the president of the United States knocked out the Iranian nuclear facilities but never got the United States into a protracted military conflict and never lost a single American in a Middle Eastern conflict is because we had the wisdom and the good sense to recognize that the American people are done with American troops dying in unnecessary foreign conflicts,” Vance said.
“Jesus Christ is the author of the fate of human history. And we are charged to do everything that we can to effectuate that vision,” Vance said.
“Freedom of religion is actually a Christian concept. And the reason and the reason it’s a Christian concept is very simple because Christianity, imago dei, the idea that we are all made in the image of our creator means that we must respect the free will of every single person.”
“I make no apologies for believing that Christianity is the pathway to God,” Vance said. “But I’m not going to force you to believe in anything because that’s not what God wants and that’s not what I want either.”
One questioner asked, “I have a question about Israel, uh, and Trump’s policy towards it. Um, do you think it’s a conflict of interest for Miriam Adelson, an Israeli donor to give millions of dollars to his campaign and then Trump have pro-Israeli policies?”
Vance replied, “Well, if you’re asking, do I think the president of United States has a conflict of interest? No, I do not. Because I know how the president of the United States makes his decisions and I see it behind the scenes. Now, as the president himself has said, Miriam Adelson, who by the way, I know and I have a very good relationship with her. She is very clear about the fact, she doesn’t hide the fact that she really loves Israel and that is part of what motivates her political giving. That is a reality. At the same time, the president of the United States is America-first through and through.”
Vance went on, “And let me give you just a couple of examples of this. Number one, we have heard from some pro-Israel voices, some people who really love the state of Israel that they don’t want us to have a relationship with certain Middle Eastern countries. Well, the president, his attitude is we need to build relationships with any country where we have shared interests and he’s going to do it if it’s in the interest of the American people and he’s done exactly that.” Vance did not make clear what countries he was talking about. He might have been talking about Qatar or Turkey, but the objections in those cases would not be to the countries but to the Hamas-hosting unfree regimes leading them, and to their behavior.
Vance went on, “I remember when people said that the president of the United States was going to get us into a multi-hundred-thousand-troop regime change war for Israel. This was four months ago, this was 6 months ago. Now, the people who accused the president of the United States of wanting to get us into a regime change war for Israel, I wonder if they’ve stepped back and said, you know what, we were wrong about that. Because the president of the United States did not want to get us into a regime change war for any other country. He wanted to knock out a nuclear facility and get everybody back home. And that’s exactly what he did. So I understand there’s some frustrations out there, but I think the president of the United States, more than any president of my lifetime, is willing to stand up to anybody if he thinks it puts the interests of the American people first. Thank you.”
A second questioner also asked Vance about Israel. “I’m a Christian man and I’m just confused why that there’s this notion that we might owe Israel something or that they’re our greatest ally or that we have to support this multi hundred billion dollar foreign aid package to Israel to cover this to quote Charlie Kirk ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza. I’m just confused why this idea has come around considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours but also openly supports the prosecution of ours.”
Vance replied: “So let me let me say things a few things about this. First of all, when the president of the United States says America first that means that he pursues the interests of Americans first. That is our entire foreign policy. And that doesn’t mean that you’re not going to have alliances, that you’re not going to work with other countries from time to time. And that is what the president believes, is that Israel, sometimes they have similar interests to the United States, and we’re going to work with them in that case.”
Vane went on, “Sometimes they don’t have similar interests to the United States. In this example, the most recent Gaza peace plan that all of us have been working on very hard for the past few weeks, the president of the United States could only get that peace deal done by actually being willing to apply leverage to the state of Israel. So when people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the president of the United States, they’re not controlling this president of the United States, which is one of the reasons why would we be able to have some of the success that we’ve had in the Middle East.”
Vance went on, “Now you ask about, you know, sort of Jews disagreeing with Christians on certain religious ideas. Yeah, absolutely. It’s one of the realities is that Jews do not believe that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. Obviously, Christians do believe that. There are some significant theological disagreements between Christians and Jews. My attitude is let’s have those conversations. Let’s have those disagreements when we have them. But if there are shared areas of interest, we ought to be willing to do that, too. For example, I really care about, one thing I really, really care about is the preservation of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Christians believe that that is the site where Jesus Christ was crucified and also that his tomb is right there as well. My attitude is if we can work with our friends in Israel to make sure that Christians have safe access to that site, that’s an obvious area of common interest, I am fine with that. What I’m not okay with is any country coming before the interests of American citizens. And it is important for all of us, assuming we’re American citizens, to put the interest of our own country first. That’s what we’re going to do. That’s what we try to do every single day. I promise you. Thank you.”
Vance’s comments are problematic on a number of levels.
Subscribe to The Editors to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

source