Body language expert decodes meaning behind Netanyahu, Trump and JD Vance's photo

WASHINGTON, DC: One photo from Tuesday’s Oval Office meeting is getting a lot of attention; it captures President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sitting together, but the real buzz is about what it says about their relationship.

Vance, an ardent skeptic of US interventionism abroad and advocate of pursuing peace with Iran, sat in on the meeting after missing the earlier one with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to attend the service for late Sen Lindsey Graham.

Tension visible in the room

“There is a gap in physical distance with Vance. Vance seems to be outside of the group, and his smile is tense, as you can see the tenseness in his lower jaw,” Lillian Glass, a Florida-based body language expert, told The Post.

The visible tension in the room is no accident. Vance has emerged over the past two months as the administration's point man on the Iran ceasefire he helped broker, and he's used unusually blunt language to accuse elements within Netanyahu's own government of trying to sabotage it.

“He does not appear to be that comfortable, as you can see his fingers are more curved on the left side, indicating tension and discomfort,” Glass, who has been an expert witness in federal and state courts on behavioral analysis, added. “This is in stark contrast to Trump, whose hands and fingers are very relaxed.”

In a three-hour appearance on 'The Joe Rogan Experience' last month, Vance said Israeli-linked operatives were working to "manipulate" American public opinion to keep the war "going on indefinitely" rather than toward any defined objective, telling those responsible to "go to hell."

The vice president recently ripped into members of Netanyahu’s cabinet last month for publicly trashing the memorandum of understanding with Iran. He has also reportedly ripped into some of Netanyahu’s claims behind the scenes.

“If I was in the Cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” Vance said during a White House press briefing.

Trump reads as warm with both leaders

Trump has also had tough conversations with Netanyahu at times. Ahead of their meeting, the president publicly complained about leaks that the Israeli leader intended to brief him about Iran’s nuclear activities at Pickaxe Mountain.

Glass found a different dynamic between Trump and Netanyahu, describing the president as "completely relaxed facially and body language-wise" while reading from notes, with his leg angled toward the Israeli leader, a sign, she said, that "he genuinely likes Bibi and feels very comfortable in his presence."

As for the photos of the meeting with Zelenskyy, Glass found that both Zelenskyy and Trump looked happy to see each other.

“Trump is genuinely happy as he has a genuine smile and leans his head towards Zelenskyy. Zelenskyy does the same, leans his head towards Trump,” she said of the photo showing them seated.

Both the Netanyahu and Zelenskyy meetings took place without press access.

Vance has clashed recently on Iran and Ukraine

Vance previously clashed publicly and dramatically with Zelenskyy during a February 2025 Oval Office meeting that was open to cameras, though the two have since repaired that relationship, a reminder that today's visible friction with Netanyahu is not necessarily a fixed state, even as it reflects a real and ongoing rift over how to end the war with Iran.

He's also reportedly told associates that Netanyahu was "overly optimistic" and "exaggerated the possibility of regime change" in Iran ahead of the US-Israeli strikes, according to Axios, and his team has separately accused Israel of spreading word that Tehran preferred negotiating directly with Vance rather than the rest of the administration, a claim his advisers have dismissed as a foreign propaganda operation designed to undermine Trump, Vance and the broader negotiating team.

Netanyahu, for his part, has pushed back publicly on Vance's earlier warning that Israeli officials shouldn't be "attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world," telling Fox News he has "many, many friends" and that he and Trump don't always see "eye to eye."