For over 50 years, US support for Israel was the singular constant in American foreign policy, a commitment that transcended party lines.
That era is definitively over. American politics has transformed Israel from a strategic ally into a volatile symbol of domestic partisan identity, a change accelerated dramatically by the conflict following October 2023. Jerusalem now faces a fractured Washington, where consensus has dissolved into ideological rivalry.
This strategic uncertainty is no longer abstract. While core military aid still passes, legislative debates, such as recent roll-call votes on aid packages, reveal measurable political contestation along ideological lines that were previously unthinkable.
For Israel, this mandates an urgent strategic pivot away from nostalgia and toward aggressive diplomatic adaptation.
Diagnosing the two rifts
The collapse of consensus stems from two divergent, yet equally dangerous partisan trends in the United States.
Within the Democratic Party, a generational realignment has fundamentally shifted perception. Israel is no longer viewed universally as a fellow democracy under siege but often recast through the lens of identity and oppression, seen as a privileged power aligned with “Western systems of inequality.”
This ideological reframing is the source of pressure for conditional aid and arms restrictions.
The most critical manifestation of this shift is the collapse of centrist Democratic attachment. Recent data show that 68% of Democrats now believe the US should avoid taking a side in the conflict. This move toward active neutrality, driven by younger and college-educated voters, severely shrinks the political window for unconditional US support.
2. The Republican Right’s personalized loyalty.
Support from the Republican Party remains robust, particularly among Evangelicals and MAGA conservatives. However, this loyalty is increasingly tribal and personalized, often framed as part of a broader culture-war narrative. This dependence is strategically shortsighted for Israel, as it ties its fate to a specific political faction.
Should a future populist movement fully embrace isolationism, the stability that Israel relies upon would be immediately jeopardized, having lost the necessary bipartisan buffer. The short-term benefit of robust right-wing support does not guarantee the long-term, institutional stability that decades of bipartisan consensus once provided.
Rebuilding institutional channels
Israel cannot reverse American polarization, but it must meticulously adapt to it. The first strategic imperative is to secure its long-term viability by rigorously decoupling from the Republican populist wing and rebuilding institutional relationships with the pragmatic Democratic center.
Jerusalem must move beyond relying on nostalgia for the old consensus. The priority must be an intensified and creative engagement with centrist and moderate Democrats: governors, senators, and rising representatives who still value pragmatic foreign policy and strategic continuity. This outreach cannot rely solely on security imperatives and counterterrorism narratives, which alienate the new Democratic base. Instead, diplomacy must emphasize shared liberal-democratic values, such as pluralism, civil rights, and technological innovation.
Framing Israel as a pluralistic society struggling to balance democracy and defense resonates far more effectively with moderate sensibilities than arguments grounded solely in threat perception. Furthermore, this deliberate cultivation of a stable centrist relationship mitigates the political cost of the ideological fracture within the American Jewish community, which once served as a stabilizing “moral bridge” but is now fractured by partisan rivalry.
Mitigating alignment risk
The greatest immediate danger for Israel is the political cost of perceived partisanship. Overt political or ideological affinity with the right-wing populist movement is strategically perilous and shortsighted. The more Israel is perceived as a purely partisan Republican project, the harder it will be to restore cross-party trust, risking the long-term erosion of legitimacy.
Political favoritism transforms support from a matter of US national interest into a partisan wedge issue, which exposes Israel to abrupt policy reversals with every election cycle. Israel must prioritize maintaining visible ties across the political spectrum, particularly with moderate Jewish and non-Jewish liberals, to preserve its image as a strategic partner to the entire United States, regardless of which party controls Washington. The goal is to cultivate maximum diplomatic flexibility, ensuring that dialogue and cooperation channels remain institutionalized and continue across all party caucuses, even when Middle East policy is hotly debated.
Adapting to volatility
The bipartisan consensus has fractured, and it will not be easily restored. Israel’s challenge is not to win the partisan battle but to transcend it.
Navigating this new terrain demands a flexible strategy that accepts volatility as the new normal.
By systematically seeking to preserve its democratic credentials and strategic value to the liberal order, and by avoiding the trap of ideological alignment, Israel can preserve its crucial backing even as Washington continues to polarize.
The writer is a senior lecturer at Ashkelon Academic College. He is the author of Complex Effects of International Relations (SUNY Press, 2021); his fourth book, Complexity Effects in Middle East Conflicts (Magnes), is forthcoming.