Haaretz Podcast24 Okt 2025

‘We’re the ones calling the shots here’: Vance, Kushner and Witkoff rattle Israel’s leadership

The flow of high-level Trump administration officials to Israel in the wake of the Gaza cease-fire agreement has sent a clear signal to Israel’s prime minister and his government, columnist Joshua Leifer said on the Haaretz Podcast.

In a single week, envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived for an extended stay, followed by the first state visit of Vice President JD Vance. Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed on Thursday evening.

For Leifer, “the bottom-line message to the world that the Trump administration is sending with these visits is ‘We don't trust Netanyahu to follow through on what he's agreed to,’ and they have a good reason to think that. At every opportunity, Netanyahu has made it clear that he is unhappy with the Gaza deal.”

Trump’s close supervision of Israel during the war – and afterwards, Leifer added, has been so unrelenting and it feels as if “in some sense, Israel has been put under a U.S. mandate.”

In his conversation with podcast host Allison Kaplan Sommer, Leifer also discussed the way in which Trump “has completely scrambled American Jewish politics.” On one hand, he said, “American Jewish liberals loathe him and experience him and his followers as racist, sexist, homophobic and antisemitic” while “on the other hand, it's true that he managed to do what Joe Biden couldn’t: end the war and bring the hostages home.”

Vance Spotlights Hamas Violence on Israel Visit, but Netanyahu Is on a Short Leash

From Bear-hug to Bibi-sitting: Marco Rubio Flies Into a Tense Moment in U.S.-Israel Relations

Analysis | With One Eye on Reconstruction, U.S. Won't Let Fragile Gaza Cease-fire Go Up in Smoke

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