With US President Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s crushing midterm defeats, many in Israel, particularly on the political right, are struggling with the scale of the accusations against those they see as their closest allies in Washington.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to the White House last year and has repeatedly sought to portray himself as almost uniquely qualified to maintain the unflinching support of President Trump, who, among other things, promised not to start “endless and stupid foreign wars.”
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However, in late February, President Trump joined Prime Minister Netanyahu in ordering joint military action against Iran, prompting immediate Iranian retaliation and raising fears of an all-out regional war. With the possibility of new hostilities looming, the two leaders exchanged glowing endorsements ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. parliamentary elections and last week’s Israeli parliamentary vote, urging the other’s voters to head to the polls to support their allies.
However, the move appears to have either backfired or largely missed the mark.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition won the October 27 election with just 53 seats, far short of the 61 needed to form a government. Meanwhile, President Trump lost control of both the House and Senate to Democratic challengers who made deep inroads into traditionally Republican territory, including strongholds in Texas and Kansas.
“Clearly, what we have witnessed is a historic political tsunami that amounts to a complete repudiation of Trumpism, and it is certainly broader than one issue,” Sibley Telhami, director of key issues polling at the University of Maryland, said of the U.S. interim results. “But the focus was on foreign policy, especially the Iran war and US support for Israel, because Americans associate these with pocketbook considerations,” he added.
The United States is Israel’s strongest diplomatic and military supporter. Over the years, it has repeatedly used its U.N. Security Council veto to block dozens of resolutions criticizing Israel, including several motions calling for an end to the genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
At the same time, it provides Israel with at least $3.8 billion in annual military aid, allowing it access to cutting-edge U.S. weaponry that has given it military superiority throughout the region, but this aid has come at increasingly high political costs.
A Telhami poll conducted a week ago found that a majority of Americans believe that Israel influenced the Trump administration’s decision to launch a long and costly war with Iran. The survey showed that Washington’s close ties to Tel Aviv were more of a liability than an asset for many voters, Telhami said. “A majority said Israel in particular would be a factor in their vote. A further majority said the Iran war, which is tied to Israel, would influence their vote.”
“Wag the dog’s tail”
While President Trump acknowledged the Democratic Party’s midterm election victory and reluctantly acknowledged that the war with Iran was a contributing factor, citing the impact on energy prices, Prime Minister Netanyahu has spent his days since his election loss questioning the results.
Over the past week, Likud party leaders have falsely accused foreign powers of illegally boosting votes for Israel’s Arab-led parties and cited victories among Jewish voters as the basis for forming a national government. Prime Minister Netanyahu even threatened not to certify the results, in his latest remarks reflecting President Trump’s reaction to his defeat in the 2020 US presidential election.
But as Israel enters a period of coalition struggle, its political system must also grapple with the defeat of its allies in the White House and Israel’s potential responsibility for it.
On Wednesday, leading opposition figure Yair Lapid said nearly all of Netanyahu’s actions since the vote had made him politically toxic, including his call for internal security agency Shin Bet to investigate Arab party leaders in connection with the U.S. election results.
As Tuesday’s vote was still in progress, President Trump said in a television interview that he had reached an agreement with Prime Minister Netanyahu that the United States would no longer provide Israel with “$4 billion a year” after the end of 2026. Although details remain sparse, the timing has fueled speculation that President Trump’s comments are part of an attempt to dampen public anger over the administration’s support for Israel and mounting domestic economic pressure.
Former Israeli government adviser Daniel Levy told Al Jazeera that “there is a degree of denial within Israel about the depth of the changes that are taking place in the United States,” warning that while Israel itself may not have participated in the midterm vote, there was certainly a sense of “the tail wagging the dog” in how the relationship between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump was perceived.
“The most obvious one, of course, was the impact of the Iran war,” Levy said. “Part of that is Israel’s role in dragging a gullible president into yet another disastrous Middle East military adventure.”
The war also gave Americans a clearer sense of their country’s relationship with Israel and the electoral costs of provoking more wars in the Middle East, he added.
A possible shift in America’s full-throated support for Israel in the face of growing international isolation may be on the minds of Israeli opposition leaders as they consider coalition options. Although Netanyahu may come under fire from some within the US Democratic Party, his relationship with President Trump could still provide political space to encourage a renewed push to escalate the war against Iran, Levy suggested, and depending on the political outcome, it could even allow Netanyahu to set the agenda again.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ability to achieve that will be weakened, but it should not be completely dismissed. Of course, a wounded Trump is not at the helm,” he said.
For Aron Pincus, a former Israeli ambassador and consul general in New York, the U.S.-Israel relationship “has reached a real tipping point, and I don’t think Israel has the imagination or education to really understand the consequences.”
Pincus said much will depend on Trump’s reaction to the Iran war and his dramatic rejection of himself and his agenda in the polls, which could force him to either escalate the conflict or seek a deal that appeases Congress.
In any case, he argued, the future relationship between the United States and Israel has fundamentally changed.
“Despite the speculation that the $3.8 billion subsidy cut was a quid pro quo to satisfy the American people, the access to weapons that was part of that subsidy remained silent,” Pincus said.
“Israel can probably survive without money and weapons depend on it, but that is not mentioned,” he added. “There is no mention of any future strategic agreements. Everything is just up in the air.”
