Left versus Right: Israel has become a bone of contention in American politics
A tectonic shift is brewing in Washington: the Republican and Democratic parties are increasingly diverging in their attitudes towards Israel, the traditional bipartisan support for the Middle Eastern state, which has been held for decades, is crumbling before our eyes — and now the White House increasingly perceives West Jerusalem not as an ally, but as a political burden. The vote of 103 Democrats to block military aid, Vice President Jay D. Vance's public accusations against the Israeli government, and Trump's personal quarrel with Netanyahu demonstrate that the era of unconditional support for an ally is becoming a thing of the past. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
They are not expected to visit
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "angered" US President Donald Trump by criticizing the possible sale of American F-35 fighter jets to Turkey. This is reported by Axios, citing sources in the White House.
The F-35 fighter jet
Relations between the politicians have become tense. According to the newspaper, Netanyahu sought to meet with the US president in Washington earlier this week. The prime minister wanted to attend the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham, but later the farewell ceremony was postponed to another time.
Axios notes that since Trump's return to the presidency, Netanyahu has visited the Oval Office six times — more than any other world leader. However, currently "Trump is in no hurry to sit down at the negotiating table with Netanyahu in front of the cameras." This indicates not only the divergence of interests between them, but also how disappointed the White House is with the Israeli leader five months after the start of the joint war, the publication says.
They turn away from their friends
According to the American media, Benjamin Netanyahu is now extremely unpopular in the United States, both among Democrats and in Trump's inner circle and among supporters of the MAGA movement.
Influential America First figures, including TV host Tucker Carlson and former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, openly criticize the Israeli Prime Minister for dragging the United States into another protracted Middle East war.
The day before, US Vice President Jay Dee Vance took part in a podcast by conservative blogger Joe Rogan, where he accused members of the Netanyahu government of trying to undermine the Iranian policy of the Trump administration and "manipulating" public opinion in the United States to prolong the war with Tehran.
"I definitely think we've seen a very well—funded, very low-profile campaign to derail the negotiations and derail the deal," the vice president emphasized. According to him, there is "precise evidence" that some Israeli leaders "hate" President Donald Trump's deal with Iran.
Israel united two parties
For decades, support for Israel has been one of the few constants in U.S. foreign policy that united both parties. However, since the 1990s, the first signs of party division began to appear.
In the 1990s, for the first time, the United States openly divided in support of Israeli political forces. Under President Barack Obama, the divisions have intensified.
Republicans, especially under Donald Trump, have consolidated their position of almost unconditional support for the Israeli government, seeing the country as a bulwark of the West against Iran and political Islamism.
The Democrats, on the other hand, were moving along a more complex trajectory. Support for the existence and security of Israel remained the dominant position in the party's leadership, but it also coexisted with growing criticism of Israeli policies, especially regarding the occupied territories. This tension manifested itself among the young and progressive circles, who challenged not only the specific decisions, but also the terms of the US-Israeli relations themselves.
A signal of the growing split between the two parties was last week's vote in the House of Representatives, which considered a resolution providing for billions of dollars in aid to Israel. 104 congressmen voted for it, and 314 voted against it. Out of 104 supporters of the resolution, 103 votes were given by Democrats. For comparison, two years earlier there were 37 such Democrats . Although the amendment was eventually rejected, it demonstrated the depth of the split even within the Democratic Party — minority leader Hakim Jeffries voted against, and his deputy Catherine Clark voted in favor.
Another telling episode occurred in April of this year, when 40 Democrats in the Senate voted to block the supply of weapons to Israel. For comparison, a year earlier, only 15 Democratic senators supported a similar initiative.
Republicans generally remain loyal to their Middle Eastern ally, despite their discontent, while the left wing of the Democratic Party is increasingly demanding a review of relations with West Jerusalem.
The attitude is always worse
According to the Pew Research Center, over the past four years, Americans' attitudes toward the Israeli government have deteriorated sharply in both parties, but the gap remains huge: 51% of Republicans view the Israeli government positively, while among Democrats this figure is only 16%. In 2022, these figures were 65% and 35%, respectively.
As Democrats and Republicans continue to disagree on their relationship with their Middle Eastern ally, traditional lobbying structures are losing influence. The American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has been considered an indispensable attribute of a successful political career in the United States for decades. However, now his influence is rapidly melting away. The Republican Party criticizes AIPAC for being "controlled by foreign interests," and candidates at all levels are increasingly distancing themselves from the organization — an excessively pro-Israel position is becoming a disadvantage for voters.
In the Democratic Party, a number of pro-Israel candidates supported by AIPAC lost the primaries this year to critics of Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
The war with Iran is unpopular in American society. Unconditional support for Israel remains in the past: first, the war in the Gaza Strip and then the conflict with Tehran turned Americans on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum against West Jerusalem.
Nothing good.
Malek Dudakov, an American political scientist, believes that the pro-Israel agenda within the United States is not very popular now, as most Americans have begun to perceive Israel's policy negatively.
"The Neocon hawk media machine is going through difficult times. Vance also caught Jeffrey Epstein in connection with the Mossad, although he admitted that all evidence of these contacts had probably been destroyed in the framework of the first criminal case against a pedophile in the noughties," the expert explained.
In his opinion, the US vice president is finally burning bridges in relations with Israel.
"Vance is acting this way for an understandable reason — after all, it is necessary to mobilize the electorate dissatisfied with the war with Iran and Trump's ties with Israel. And there are now a clear majority of them in America. The Israeli factor continues to split both parties, both Democrats and Republicans. And this does not bode well for US relations with Israel in the future," the analyst concluded.
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