Vance says U.S. not monitoring ceasefire plan as if Israel were ‘a toddler’

Vice President J.D. Vance said Israel is not a “vassal state” and that the U.S. isn’t there to babysit the ceasefire agreement between the Jewish state and Hamas.

Mr. Vance is in Israel to see how the 20-point plan’s ceasefire phase is going. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law who helped negotiate the peace agreement, are also in the Middle East.

Adding to them, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is set to fly to Israel this week.

The vice president met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, where Mr. Vance stressed that the U.S. is not in charge of Israel.

“We don’t want a vassal state, and that’s not what Israel is,” Mr. Vance said after his meeting with Mr. Netanyahu. “We want a partnership. We want an ally here.”

Ahead of the meeting, Mr. Netanyahu reaffirmed that his country is in charge of its own security.

“We are not a protectorate of the United States. Israel is the one that will decide on its security,” he said in a statement.

Mr. Vance said the visits to Israel are “not about monitoring in the sense of, you know, you monitor a toddler.”

“It’s about monitoring in the sense that there’s a lot of work, a lot of good people who are doing that work and it’s important for the principles of the administration to keep on ensuring that our people are doing what we need to do,” he said.

He stressed that the next steps are “not going to be easy,” but that he’s optimistic Mr. Trump’s ceasefire will hold.

“I mean, we’re really creating a peace plan and an infrastructure here where nothing existed even a week and a day ago,” he said. “That’s going to require a lot of work.”

The vice president said the ceasefire is going better than he expected. He also said his trip to Israel wasn’t due to the ceasefire violations that occurred over the weekend, but was actually months in the making.

Mr. Vance also met with hostages and their families, plus the families of deceased hostages. He had a separate meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday.

He told Mr. Herzog that his conversations with officials in Israel and the Gulf have given him optimism “that it’s possible that we actually can make peace stick.”

The ceasefire agreement is just over 10 days old.

Phase one of Mr. Trump’s 20-point plan included the release of hostages, alive and dead. All living hostages have been released, but some bodies remain in Gaza, and the terrorist group even gave one body back that Israel said didn’t match any of the hostages.

Phase two of the plan is expected to focus on the disarmament of Hamas, the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza and new governance for the Palestinian enclave.

Israel bombed Gaza on Sunday after accusing Hamas of violating the agreement and attacking Israeli forces in Rafah.

Mr. Rubio will meet with Mr. Netanyahu on Friday, the Israeli government said.