Ambassador Leiter: Reports of rift in ties with US are overblown ‘drama’

Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter insists that reports of a rupture in ties between Israel and the US are overblown.

“The media loves drama. So, if the president and the prime minister have 100 conversations that are pleasant, and then there are two conversations in which the president is having a bad day or is a little irritable and makes that known — that becomes the tenor of the relationship between the two men,” Leiter laments during an onstage interview in Washington.

“The relationship is good and solid. There are differences along the way, and they are legitimate,” he says, using as an example Israel’s opposition to the mulled US sale of F-35 fighter jet parts to Turkey. Leiter explains that Israel has made its position known and that the US has the right to decide how it wants to proceed.

He wholly rejects the notion that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dragged the US into war with Iran, arguing that those claiming so are engaging in antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Leiter also rejects that it as a mistake for Israel to kill Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, even though it has led to the elevation of more hardline IRGC officials. He argues that it is too early to say who will fill the leadership vacuum in Tehran and that in some previous cases, such voids have been filled by individuals willing to make peace.

Leiter dismisses US Vice President JD Vance’s recent claim that President Donald Trump is the only world leader left who is still sympathetic toward Israel. He points to strong Israeli ties with India, the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, Somaliand, and Armenia, highlighting Israel’s recent recognition of the Armenian genocide. That decision has received a chilly response in Armenia, amid accusations that it was only taken in order to snub Turkey.

While arguing that Vance was incorrect in describing Israel as diplomatically isolated, Leiter clarifies that he has never detected “a scintilla of antipathy toward Israel” from dozens of meetings with Vance.

Vance made the comments while calling out far-right Israeli ministers who have criticized the MOU that the US signed with Iran last month.

Leiter says that some ministers in Netanyahu’s government have acted “irresponsibly,” while calling out Israel’s critics who have used those individuals to lodge genocide accusations against Israel.

Israeli Ambassador Yechei Leiter criticizes U.S. media: "If we were guilty of the things that we're accused of my son would be alive today…Because we don't strike bomb population centers from above and we don't starve population centers and we don't commit genocide." pic.twitter.com/Ml6tFJqPwJ

— CSPAN (@cspan) July 6, 2026