Flagging Support for Israel Isn’t Right or Left

I’m not much of a podcast person, but a recent episode of the Flagrant podcast featured the hosts of Pod Save America, so it was notable for the blending of both right and left voices on American politics. Pod Save America is one of the older players in the “guys talking to each other about politics” space, the hosts having worked for the Obama administration. The guys of Flagrant are well known for their straight-talk and contribution to getting Donald Trump elected to a second term. About a third of the way in the episode all the hosts agreed on something: the humanitarian situation in Gaza is a disaster.

There has been concern for a while about the erosion of pro-Israel support among Democrats. Peter Beinart recently raised the alarm that support for Israel has been eroding on the American left. But he’s wrong. Increasingly this movement has come to encompass the full spectrum of American politics. Pew Research recently published data showing that while negative views of Israel have risen among Democrats by 16% since 2022, negative views among Republicans have also risen over that period by 10%. Israel seems to be losing support across the American political spectrum.

Further preliminary research I have done found similar trends. When asked whether Israel is mostly to blame for the war in Gaza, most people responded between “about half the blame” to “a lot of the blame” falls on Israel. But on average Democrats, Independents, and Republicans all placed half or more of the blame on Israel, though Democrats were more critical and Republicans less so. But the results are much starker for a more tangible issue: military aid to Israel. There, when asked whether military aid to Israel should be increased a lot or decreased a lot (it was on a 5 point scale) the average response was between “somewhat decreased” and “decreased a lot”. The averages for Republicans, Democrats, and Independents all tended towards decreased aid. And it only magnifies the younger you get.

Military aid to Israel has always been the centerpiece of pro-Israel advocacy in Washington. “Yays” and “boos” only go so far—the roughly four billion dollar annual aid package is discrete and tangible evidence of the U.S.-Israel relationship. It not only indicates the support of Congress for Israel’s defense, but also intertwines U.S. and Israeli military infrastructure, allowing U.S. manufacturers to receive earmarks to share cutting edge weapon systems with Israel year after year. While Democrats have been stirring for some time to put conditions on military aid, Congressional Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene recently made headlines arguing that military aid to Israel should be cut to zero.

Asking whether Democrats or Republicans are better for Israel is just the wrong question. Both parties hold considerable influence, and even when one party is out of power the pendulum will invariably swing back in the other direction. The U.S. has always been the strongest supporter of Israel, but that support has diminished since October 7 rather than strengthened. As voters of both parties lose their taste for strong pro-Israel support, what will it mean for the ability of Israel to defend itself in the years to come?