Midterms have Israel fearing US alliance essentially broken

For decades, Israel has been able to rely on rock-solid bipartisan American support for its every move, including diplomatic cover on the international stage and hundreds of billions of dollars in aid. Tuesday’s sweeping Democratic victories call all of that into question.

Michigan comfortably elected the country’s first Muslim senator, Abdul el-Sayed, who campaigned in part on ending all aid to Israel and called its war in Gaza a genocide. That was after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent $30 million against him.

Seven hundred miles south, Georgians overwhelmingly reelected Senator Jon Ossoff, a Jewish potential 2028 presidential contender who was one of the first Senate Democrats to vote against offensive weapons sales to Israel in 2024 — a view now shared by the majority of the caucus.

Those results came hours after President Donald Trump, who’s called himself history’s most pro-Israel president, told Fox News that the U.S. would end $3.8 billion in annual military aid to the country — noting that politically, it’d become “almost too easy a target.”

“This is a five-alarm fire,” Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis, the head of Israel-U.S. research at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told Bloomberg. “The fact that a pro-Israel Republican president sees it necessary to go out on election day and say we’re not giving Israel direct military funding tells you the level of toxicity that Israel carries and sends the wrong signals to some of Israel’s rivals.”

And Vice President JD Vance, in an extraordinary social-media post the morning after the Republican rout in the midterm elections, cited the need to “change our relationship to Israel” as one of four keys to winning back Congress and the White House in 2028. He is widely expected to seek the GOP nomination in 2028.

It was an acknowledgment of just how dramatically American politics have turned against Israel. As Democrats prepare to take commanding majorities in both houses of Congress, the relationship has become a litmus test in a party in which only 13% have a positive view of Israel, according to a March NBC News poll. That figure matches the share of young voters overall, regardless of political party, a sign of an impending generational change in how the U.S. views Israel and its actions in the Middle East.

“It is a clear vote of no confidence in the outgoing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, associate fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. “This marks a huge, huge shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

As Netanyahu fights for his political life at home, his decades-long strategy of turning his country into a partisan issue in the U.S. appears to have fundamentally backfired. With even young Republicans increasingly rejecting Israel — just above a quarter support its government, according to Pew — it’s unclear how the relationship will recover.

“For the foreseeable future I think they’re in a lot of trouble,” Michael Allen, managing director and partner at Beacon Global Strategies, said of Israel. “A lot of this depends on the coalition developments that have now begun in earnest” after the Israeli elections.

Netanyahu and other government officials have yet to publicly address the impact of the U.S. election. But his political rivals are seizing on the upheaval just days before President Isaac Herzog decides whether to give Netanyahu or his main challenger, Gadi Eisenkot, the first chance to form a government following Israel’s inconclusive Oct. 27 election.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said in a post on X that the U.S. election results eliminate any possibility of a unity government led by Netanyahu, while liberal leader Yair Golan said it showed “just how toxic Netanyahu is among both Democrats and Republicans.”

While legislation restricting U.S. arms transfers to Israel is unlikely to become law under Trump, shifting public and congressional sentiment could eventually translate into policy that would limit Israel’s access to munitions and expose it to broader sanctions. For decades, the U.S. has been a reliable veto at the United Nations Security Council against resolutions critical of Israeli policies and military conduct, even as global condemnation has grown.

The voters “made clear they want a different direction for America and a different approach in the Middle East – one that has too often failed Americans, Israelis and Palestinians alike,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street, which describes itself as a liberal Zionist advocacy group.

Much of the debate in Israel centers on the abruptness of Trump’s announcement and the prospect of aid ending this year.

Earlier this year, Netanyahu said he wanted to draw down U.S. military aid over the next decade. In June, Israeli and U.S. officials announced negotiations on a fresh deal to take effect in 2028, aimed at gradually replacing military aid with joint investment in research, development and production.

“Netanyahu and I have made a deal,” Trump told Fox News on Tuesday. “We made a deal months ago that we’re stopping — and they’re fine with it. They’ve become a very successful country. They don’t need it. And we won’t be paying anymore.”

Two Israeli Finance Ministry officials told Bloomberg that they and their Defense Ministry counterparts were surprised to learn of the agreement. Two other Foreign Ministry officials separately said they had not been informed of any changes to the existing memorandum of understanding. All four requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

“The American public is frustrated that taxpayer dollars are going to provide weapons to a country that is not using those weapons ethically or in the interest of regional stability and security,” said Allison McManus, managing director of national security at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. “Younger generations are really questioning the value proposition of an ironclad, unconditional relationship” with Israel.

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With assistance from Peter Martin, Magdalena Del Valle and Natalia Drozdiak.

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