Have Trump and Netanyahu Cemented the U.S.-Israel Alliance or Destroyed It?

At first blush, the answer to the question in the title is clear from the fact that U.S.-Israel relations are closer than ever, evident from the joint fight against Iran and the reversal of nearly a century of misguided Middle East policy directed by Arabists. Alas, like vampires, the Arabists are seemingly impossible to kill and have found homes in the media and academia, awaiting the return of Democrats to power and their reincarnation again as decision-makers. Their hope for a return has been fueled by the unpopularity of Israel, its prime minister, and its conduct. Meanwhile, the feeling among some on the right that President Donald Trump betrayed his America First campaign has strengthened the isolationists and conspiracy theorists who hold Israel responsible for Trump’s aggressive policies and share the desire to dismantle the U.S.-Israel alliance.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems oblivious or unconcerned with the trends. He placed an enormous strategic bet: his personal relationship with Trump and the loyalty of the Republican Party would sustain Israel’s relationship with the US. He has been rewarded, but at the expense of Israeli sovereignty, which was no more evident than when Trump surprised Netanyahu with a post saying Israel was “PROHIBITED” from bombing Lebanon, a day after Netanyahu had told the public the IDF was advancing in its operation to occupy southern Lebanon and destroy Hezbollah.

Not only has Israel in many ways lost the war with its enemies, but it has also lost the hearts and minds of many of its friends. The poll numbers don’t lie, and while there is hope that they are transitory, the trend is clearly against Israel.

In just eight years, Gallup found that sympathy for Israel among Americans has fallen from a record high of 64% to a near record low of 36%, while sympathy for Palestinians has more than doubled, reaching a record 41%.

On average, over time, most Democrats have not supported Israel. Nevertheless, the shift in those years is nothing short of seismic. In 2018, 49% sympathized with Israel. Today, that number is 17%. Meanwhile, 65% of Democrats now align with the Palestinians, up from just 16% in 2001.

There is also erosion on the Republican side, as sympathy has slipped from 87% in 2018 to 70% today, leaving a partisan gap of 53 points and reflecting the total breakdown of the once bipartisan consensus.

Pew’s April 2026 survey is, if anything, grimmer. Sixty percent of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Israel. The only groups still in Israel’s corner are Republicans over 50 and white evangelicals — and even their support is slipping, with older Republican favorability falling from 85% to 73% and evangelical support dropping from 80% to 65%. Among Catholics, only 35% remain favorable; among white non-evangelical Protestants, just 39%. Israel is not losing the margins. It is losing the center.

Even more alarming, Israel has lost the next generation of Americans.

Among those aged 18 to 34, just 22% now sympathize with Israel, according to Gallup; 53% favor the Palestinians. Twenty-five years ago, young Americans leaned toward Israel. Today, they lean decisively away from it.

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing on the right, too.

An Echelon Insights poll of conservatives and Trump voters aged 18-34 found that 20-25% hold antisemitic views, 21% believing “Israel is a colonizer built on the suffering of others,” 50% opposing aid to Israel, and 44% agreeing that ending military aid to Israel would make them feel better. Just 53% supported Israel over Hamas, and only 25% had a favorable opinion of Netanyahu. Small numbers have fringe views like believing Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent (29%) and that Israel was behind the killing of President Kennedy (20%); 27% believe Israel persecutes Christians (which certainly won’t be helped by the incident in Lebanon where a soldier destroyed a statue of Jesus).

This is not happening in isolation. A new media ecosystem has emerged on the right. No longer shaped by traditional pro-Israel voices, the conversation is now led by influencers like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes—figures who are skeptical of foreign entanglements, critical of Israel, and sometimes antisemitic.

Unsurprisingly, the Gaza war has impacted public opinion. Approval of Israel’s military actions in Gaza dropped from 50% in 2023 to 32% last July. The party disparity was extreme: 71% of Republicans supported Israel both then and now. In contrast, only 36% of Democrats supported Israel at first, falling to 8%. Likewise, among Independents, support dropped from 47% to 25%. Support among 18-34-year-olds was just 9% for the Gaza war and 15% for military action in Iran.

Netanyahu’s bet that Israel would be saved from the progressive left by the mainstream right paid off under Trump. However, the future is increasingly in doubt as the Carlson, Fuentes, Owens wing of the GOP gains ground; isolationists, antisemites, and conspiracy theorists on the right are ascendant.

By transforming Israel from a bipartisan cause into a partisan one — by tying the alliance so tightly to one man and one party — Netanyahu has ensured that any Democratic return to power becomes an existential threat to the relationship. And that threat is no longer hypothetical.

Forty Senate Democrats recently voted to block bulldozer sales to Israel. Thirty-six opposed the sale of 1,000-pound bombs. Even support for defensive weapons like Iron Dome is eroding. These shifts reflect a significant change: what was once a fringe position held by Bernie Sanders and “the Squad” has, in less than two years, become mainstream in the Democratic Party. As a result, if Democrats win back either chamber in the midterms, Israel could genuinely lose the military assistance it depends on for survival.

Netanyahu scored an own goal by announcing Israel would forego military assistance. This move led even staunch supporters, like Republican Lindsay Graham, to champion the idea. Netanyahu may have believed he was anticipating Democratic plans to cancel aid before Israel could develop domestic alternatives. However, a smarter move would be to secure ten more years of aid by renewing the memorandum of understanding he signed with Obama, doing so now with Trump.

Fringe candidates are increasingly being mainstreamed. For example, Zohran Mamdani was elected in New York, and supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah are gaining traction in state and local races. At the same time, some Democrats are publicly shunning AIPAC, which is seen as further evidence of the toxicity of support for Israel. Even more worrisome, Democratic presidential contenders are openly wobbly: Gavin Newsom called Israel an apartheid state before backtracking; Rahm Emanuel has called for ending aid to Israel, and Josh Shapiro wants to use aid as leverage. Just when U.S.-Israel relations have reached their apex, Democrats, including Jews, threaten to reverse Trump’s policies and destroy the decades-long special relationship should they reach the White House in two years. Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the prospect of JD Vance as the party’s standard-bearer, given his ideological proximity to the Carlson wing, offers little reassurance to those counting on the GOP to maintain the alliance.

The collapse of support for Israel has multiple causes. The generational shift is real: younger Americans simply lack the historical memory of the Cold War, the Holocaust, Israel’s early wars for survival — that once made sympathy instinctive. The social media ecosystem is real: platforms optimized for visual emotion have become engines for pro-Palestinian content. The “David to Goliath” perception is real: a country simultaneously at war in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran, and now a partner in an attack on Iran, does not look like a vulnerable democracy fighting for its life. The intersectionality framework is real: for an entire generation of progressives, Israel has been successfully coded as an oppressor within a broader narrative of racial and colonial injustice, and that coding is now nearly impossible to reverse.

And the negative impact of Netanyahu himself is real. His favorability has flipped: 52% of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of him — his worst rating since Gallup began tracking in 1997. Just 9% of Democrats view him favorably, and only 6% of Americans aged 18 to 34 do. In a Washington Post survey, 68% of American Jews disapproved of him, 61% said Israel had committed war crimes, and 39% believed it had committed genocide. Netanyahu, once considered the master communicator who could explain Israel to the world, has become one of the primary reasons the world has turned against it.

Some Jews blame Israel’s public relations for the loss of support. However, Israel’s PR has long been poor, yet public opinion has not dropped as sharply until now. Even Abba Eban, Israel’s most erudite diplomat, could make lemonade from the Israeli policy lemons. Nevertheless, current issues—including settlements, judicial reform, the treatment of Palestinians, settler violence, religious pluralism, opposition to a two-state solution, and Haredi exemptions—have alienated both Jews and non-Jews. Furthermore, there is a limit to how much public relations can counter what the world’s cameras capture in Gaza and Lebanon. As a result, claims that there is no famine, that Hamas’s casualty numbers are inflated, or that the media is biased have not convinced audiences outside the AIPAC echo chamber.

Together, Trump and Netanyahu have shattered what was once the most durable bipartisan consensus in American foreign policy. While they have won every battle, they are losing the war for American public opinion. Through this, they have forged an alliance of unprecedented tactical depth, even as they hollow out the strategic foundation on which any lasting alliance must rest.

The danger is not that the alliance collapses tomorrow. It will not. American institutions, military ties, intelligence sharing, and strategic interests do not evaporate overnight.

The danger is slower, quieter, and ultimately more profound: a steady erosion of the American support that has sustained Israel for decades.

It is the loss of the one ally Israel cannot afford to lose.