A New Pro-Israel Consensus Is Emerging in Washington

American support for Israel is as strong as ever, but its character is changing. Last week, we received another reminder of this trend when 46 out of 47 members of the Democratic caucus in the Senate supported a proposal from Senator Chris Van Hollen, which sought to require the State Department to report to Congress on the human rights situation in the West Bank, including settler violence. The proposal was based on Section 502B of the American Foreign Assistance Act, which allows Congress to require the State Department to report on the human rights situation in a country receiving US military aid.

The proposal ultimately failed by a vote of 51 to 47, with only two senators breaking from their party’s position: Republican Rand Paul voted in favor, while Democrat John Fetterman (for now) voted against it (two other Republican senators did not vote). After the next Congress is elected on November 3 and takes office in January, a similar proposal will likely pass, and rightly so – because Israel needs an ally that protects it, sometimes even from itself.

The next Congress may be the most pro-Israel Congress in American history — but not in the traditional sense of the term. For decades, bipartisan support for Israel has been based on a simple premise: Israel is a strategic ally of the United States, the nation-state of the Jewish people, and a democracy that has the right and duty to defend itself.

This assumption remains widespread in Congress. The vast majority of lawmakers in both parties will continue to support Israel’s security and see the relationship between the two countries as an important American interest.

But something significant has changed.

More and more lawmakers understand that support for Israel does not mean unconditional support for every policy of the Israeli government or for any reality that the government allows, including the violent reality in the West Bank. On the contrary, from their perspective, a commitment to Israel’s security and future requires the United States to use its diplomacy and leverage to help Israel move away from the ongoing reality of occupation and find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This vision does not end with the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is about a broader regional architecture, in which Israel and a demilitarized Palestinian state integrate within a framework of regional cooperation, security guarantees, and economic ties. This framework can serve both Israeli and American interests.

This change is evident in both parties, albeit for different reasons.

In the Democratic Party, which will become the majority party in the House of Representatives and possibly in the Senate, there is indeed a small faction that does not see Israel as a central ally of the United States and questions the very American commitment to Israel. But the mainstream and dominant current in the party is entirely different: lawmakers who see themselves as Zionists and enthusiastic supporters of Israel’s security but believe that support for Israel does not necessitate support for the policies of its right-wing governments. In their view, a judicious use of American leverage could help Israel reach an agreement that would strengthen its security and regional standing.

The Republican Party is also changing, albeit in a different direction. There are still evangelical lawmakers who interpret the conflict in the Middle East through theological concepts related to the “Holy Land” and the apocalyptic vision in which war will hasten the return of the messiah. Some neoconservatives see military force as a central tool for advancing American interests in the Middle East.

At the same time, a more central current within the America First party is gaining strength, questioning the utility of prolonged American military involvement in the Middle East. For many in this faction, the question is not how to ensure that the United States will engage in another war in the region, but how it can reduce its military involvement and support diplomatic arrangements that promote American interests without dragging the United States into more wars.

They will not support Israel due to shared values. Still, their preference for diplomacy to promote American interests might help Israel more than the warmongers who were dragged into the damaging wars in Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where they did not learn from Vietnam.

I prefer a Republican Party that still sees a role for America at the head of the free world. Still, pro-diplomacy Republicans like John McCain or Mitt Romney no longer exist, and the isolationists are preferable to the existing alternative.

From the Israeli perspective, this profound change could, under a different government in Israel, become a positive opportunity.

For years, American support for Israel has been presented as a zero-sum game: either you support Israel by aligning with its government, or you exert pressure on it and harm it. But this perception is gradually losing its strength. It is possible to be committed to Israel’s security and believe that Israel also needs a political arrangement; it is possible to support Israel as the democratic nation-state of the Jewish people and think that the continuation of the occupation endangers its future; and it is possible to see the American-Israeli alliance as a strategic asset and think that precisely for this reason, Washington should help stop settler violence and promote a political solution.

This could be the paradox of the next Congress: it might be more pro-Israel precisely because it is less willing to define support for Israel as automatic alignment with every Israeli government policy.

If this process continues, Israel’s interest in a political arrangement that ensures security, maintains Israel as a democratic state, and integrates it into a new regional architecture may find broader and more significant expression in the next Congress than in the past.

No less important: Such support could serve as a new foundation for the relations between Israel and the United States – not relations based on dependency, but an alliance between two countries that are partners capable of disagreeing along the way, with a shared commitment to the goal: a secure, strong Israel integrated into a stable and prosperous Middle East.

If Netanyahu remains prime minister, he will not receive American support for his policies. However, if Eizenkot takes the helm and shows a willingness to make political arrangements, he will receive the support of the world’s most important power in efforts to bring us to a safe harbor.