Shifting Sands

Whatever may happen to the state of American democracy, a Democratic or a Republican administration might abandon the deference to Israeli fears which have largely governed American policy since 1967.

Supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claim that the last fifteen months were filled with his foreign policy successes, including the weakening or elimination of longterm adversaries such as Hamas, Assad’s Syrian regime, Hezbollah, and Iran, as well as the return of nearly all the hostages.  But meanwhile, an ally that is more important to Israel than all of the above is hemorrhaging support all over the political spectrum.  Let’s examine some recent developments that are or should be causing extreme unease in the Israeli foreign ministry.  Paradoxically, it may turn out that some of the best friends Israel has left could be the Arab states, though that will not last forever without fundamental changes in Israeli attitudes. But let’s first look at the US, starting with recent history.

The 1990s set the tone for what many see as the “traditional” array of supporters – and some opponents – of the state of Israel (I’ll review the history of Americans’ support for the Yishuv and the early state in a forthcoming post).  Almost all Jews and most liberals supported Israel, though with increasing unhappiness from the left-liberals, largely because of increasing settlement activity in the West Bank since the Likud had come to power in 1977. Evangelicals supported Israel in increasing numbers but with less of the intensity they would soon display. Reagan had certainly supported Israel but had set some limits, and George H.W. Bush confronted Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir over settlements with little blowback from his party. Israel was essentially a Democratic issue, except for Republican presidents, who had no choice but to deal with it.

Bill Clinton and Yitzhak Rabin both entered office in 1992 and the Oslo peace process got underway the next year. American society was beginning its long slide into polarization, and part of that included conservatives and Republicans showing increasing sympathy for settlers and the Right in Israel. The 1990s also witnessed the rise of the ideologically driven neoconservative movement, which advocated for a “greater” Israel (eretz yisrael sh’laymah) and a more muscular American foreign policy, and which represented the first (only?) largely Jewish-led Republican faction. Evangelicals now moved actively into the fray with their faith-based connection to the West Bank, as did Orthodox and Haredi Jews feeling empowered enough to begin politically rejecting traditional American Jewish liberalism. Nevertheless, even after Oslo failed, President George W. Bush advocated a two-state solution (2SS) and generally supported Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon until the latter’s sudden death in early 2006.

The international left, which had supported Israel’s emergence in 1948, had begun to sympathize with and then embraced the Palestinian cause right after the 1967 war, as did what was then called the “Third World.” The United Nations passed the “Zionism is Racism” resolution in 1975 but then repealed it 1991. By 2002, however, the Durban Conference showed that the third world  was firmly pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist, as was an increasing sentiment in European civil society. Interestingly, 2002 was also the year that the entire Arab League officially declared itself in favor of a full peace with Israel, on the condition of a Palestinian state.  That unexpected offer is still on the table, but Israel has never officially responded.

The American Jewish left found it difficult to navigate between sympathy for Israelis being blown up during the Second Intifada and anger at concurrent Israeli repression. However, it hoped that a new dawn was at hand in 2009 with  the inauguration of Barack Obama as US president, who vowed a renewed push for Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the 2SS.  Fatefully, however, 2009 also marked the second coming of Bibi Netanyahu as Israeli prime minister, a post he has held continuously – with only a 20 month interruption – until today.  Bibi had wooed evangelicals as Israel’s UN ambassador in the 1980s and made it his business to charm ordinary Republicans as well, even after the Neocons declined in the wake of the Iraqi debacle. He successfully portrayed Obama to Israelis and the American Jewish establishment as pro-Palestinian and made evasion of American presidential pressure into an art form. American Jews remained liberal and democratic and continued to support Israel, but Bibi’s successive governments made it crystal clear they considered the Republican party their American home.  Obama ultimately failed with regard to Israel/Palestine. Interestingly, Pew reported in 2022 that Americans had become more favorable towards both the Israeli and Palestinian peoples since 2019 but significantly more unfavorable toward their respective governments.

Donald Trump portrayed himself in his first term as pro-Bibi and pro-Israel and showed it by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and creating the Abraham Accords, which seemed to fulfill Bibi’s dream of creating an Arab-Israel peace which unapologetically ignored the Palestinian issue.  Joe Biden largely continued his policy while paying lip service to the 2SS. The American Jewish left was increasingly frustrated with his failure to exert any serious pressure towards ending the occupation, but the administration was primarily intent on bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, and the Saudis indicated they required only a formalistic nod towards two states. Evangelicals seemed staunchly in the pocket of the Israeli messianic right, which also controlled the new Netanyahu government, and which took office on the last day of 2022.

Thus, the situation with regard to American support of Israel as of October 6, 2023 seemed not dissimilar to the one that had obtained twenty years earlier, in the days of the Second Intifada.  Crucially, though, the Palestinian narrative was much more in evidence, especially around universities, and Arab and Muslim Americans were more visible, though not so much in politics. But at a policy level Israel remained perhaps our most faithful ally, at least in political rhetoric.

Two years on, in late 2025, the picture is far different. Many Americans now sympathize more with the Palestinians and Israel is regarded as a near  pariah by many.  The anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for  Peace was being widely quoted as the counterbalance to the American Jewish establishment, rather than more moderate peace groups like JStreet  or Partners for Progressive Israel, though this seems to have receded in recent months.  The  recent over-the-top campaign against anti-Zionist Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York City, as well as his victory with one-third of the Jewish vote, highlights this ferment.  However, the ongoing Gaza ceasefire has allowed the intra-Jewish antagonists to catch their breath.

Not so on the American Right, where a more fundamental conflict is underway. For years there have been rumors that white evangelical support for Israel was starting to soften, a trend which accelerated with the Gaza War. Now, however, we see that a strong Christian-oriented Right proclaiming “America First” suddenly has little Interest in supporting Israel, particularly In its current confrontational state.  This is accompanied by the Christian nationalism of J.D. Vance as well as the overt anti-semitism of Nick Fuentes and other young influencers.  Between sympathy for the Palestinian plight on the one hand, an America First ideology that disdains foreign entanglements and expense on another, and genuine anti-semitism on a third, Israel’s support by evangelical Christian, especially the younger ones, may decline steeply in the near future.

The older Neocon voices such as Lindsey Graham Ted Cruz, and Secretary of State/National Security Advisor Marco Rubio oppose this direction, but are finding they are out of touch with important parts of their constituencies. Meanwhile President Trump is wildly popular in Israel, in spite of essentially forcing his 20 point peace plan on an unwilling and largely unhappy Israeli government applying more pressure on an Israeli prime minister than any president since Eisenhower. Though the Israeli right and part of the American Jewish right are grumbling, they realize they are outmatched, at least for the moment.

American and Jewish liberals are trying to support Trump’s peace plan while deploring everything else about him and many of them both want it to succeed and expect it will fail. The Democratic party may find it impossible in 2028 to have even a vague consensus on Israel. Many of its donors may be the only bastion left for the traditional critical but supportive perspective held since the Carter administration by Democratic presidents.

Half a world away from this ideological chaos, there is another interested group which appears to have held a fairly steady position on Israel for years or actually for decades. This comprises the principal Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia, but also includes Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and the other states of the Abraham Accord, namely Morocco and Bahrain. Optimistically, but realistically, I would also include Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Qatar. There is every indication that Syria’s President Al Sharaa, who is being feted at the White House this week, has completely foresworn his jihadist past and fully recognizes the need to make peace with his heavily-armed neighbor to the southwest.

Now that the claims of Hezbollah’s potency have been exploded, Lebanon’s newly reconstituted government is also murmuring under its breath about the need for peace with Israel.  Turkey and Qatar are frequently derided as pro-Hamas, but this is largely for internal Islamic reasons. Neither has shown any interest in fighting, much less attempting to eradicate, Israel. In fact, it seems that virtually all of Israel’s neighbors in all directions, excepting, of course, Iran and Yemen. All except those rejectionists seem to be waiting, with surprising patience, for a self-confident but less belligerent Israel to emerge, one which would accept the 2SS in some form and, perhaps more importantly to most, serve as a major engine of growth for the entire Middle East. Note that all of the foregoing states (except non-Arab Turkey) were part of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002, which has been sweetened for Israel somewhat but is still on the table.

Is this an unrealistically rosy scenario, especially in light of the brutal war which is not yet settled and  the immense anger on all sides?  On the Arab side, I don’t think so. Vladimir Jabotinsky was right in his 1925 essay The Iron Wall. He expected that once the Jewish state had proved it was willing and able to defend itself, it would be accepted by its neighbors.  Were Israel now a force for stability and integration into the Middle East, as Jabotinsky expected, as well as for economic and technical progress, that would likely take place.

Unfortunately, there is a bigger problem that currently prevent this scenario from even getting started. Israelis are in no mood to be favorable towards any serious Palestinian self-determination plan, which is essential for a normalization of relations with the rest of the Arab world. The lesson that many, probably most, Israelis have absorbed from the events of October 7, 2023 plus the brutal and unnecessarily extended war which followed, is that any perceived threat to Israel must be violently suppressed at its inception. Israelis are determined to shoot first and ask questions later, and damn the consequences. The lesson that many Israeli Jews have learned from the last 80 years is not that  Palestinian self-determination is essential for peace but, rather, the opposite, that any manifestation of the Palestinian national movement, unless it is under Israeli control, is a stark existential danger for Israel and must be snuffed out, whatever the cost. In my view, that is a dangerous misreading of the current situation. Not infrequently, a military solution is counter-productive.

I will be exploring this precise issue in forthcoming posts.

Israel’s next election will be held in 2026. It would be a blessing to Bibi’s country and to the entire region were he to choose not to run or to have the opposition coalition win enough votes to form the government.  However, even if that government actually takes office it will be dominated by center-right and mainstream right forces whose only virtue is that they cannot stand being in a government with the hated Netanyahu and (presumably) would not accept being constrained by the messianic right.  They are currently uninterested in any movement towards ending the occupation that would lead towards genuine Palestinian self-determination. That is, unless it is forced on them by an outside power, which could only be the United States.

This is where we come back to the muddled American attitudes toward Israel, which appear to be in the process of change.  No one can say how far or fast this process may move.  However, whatever may happen to the state of American democracy, it is by no means inconceivable that in the not-so-distant future either However given the cittemt changes with regard to attitudes towards Israel on both the left and the right Comm It is not in the that either a Democratic or a Republican administration might abandon the deference to Israeli fears which have largely governed American policy since at least 1967.  Assuming the Arab states are still waiting, peace with virtually the entire Arab world is possible.  Without such a change…..