Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump has announced that Ohio Senator J.D. Vance will be his running mate in the 2024 US presidential elections, only two days after the attempted assassination of the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Vance (39) is considered a rising star in the Republican Party. In the past, he was highly critical of Trump, but over time he became one of his most vocal supporters. He is known for advocating a reduction in American involvement on the international stage, but has made an exception for Israel.
In a speech delivered at the Quincy Institute, in May, which aligns closely with his views, Vance expressed support for aid to Israel, describing it as a critical component of American foreign policy.
"The way that we get there in Israel is by combining the Abraham Accords approach with the defeat of Hamas. That gets us to a place where Israel and the Sunni nations can play a regional counterweight to Iran".
"We don't want a broader regional war. We don't want to get involved in a broader regional war. The best way to do that is to ensure that Israel, with the Sunni nations, can actually police their own region of the world.", He added.
In an interview with CNN, Vance talked about the ungoing war in Gaza: "Hamas started the war, and now they hide behind Palestinian civilians. So if you want to learn the lessons of the last 40 years, the most important thing is we have to defeat Hamas as a viable military organization".
"You're never going to defeat the ideology of Hamas, but you can root out those commanders, those final military-trained battalions, and I think you should empower the Israelis to do it", Vance added.
