Washington (Palestine Foundation Information Center), Phil Gordon, former national security adviser to former US Vice President Kamala Harris, has warned that support for the occupying Israeli state in the United States has declined dramatically and sharply, resulting in what he described as a lasting loss that may not be reversed even after Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump leave office. He also accused the Israeli prime minister of delaying a Gaza ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement for six months in 2024 by imposing conditions related to the occupation.
In an interview published on Tuesday by the Hebrew-language website Walla, Gordon revealed that public opinion toward Israel in the United States had undergone a profound and historic shift, particularly among younger generations. He said there was now little prospect of restoring Israel’s previous level of public support in the United States, even if the Israeli government changed.
According to Gordon, calls to impose restrictions on arms sales and military assistance to Israel are no longer confined to the political margins or a small minority. Instead, they have become a central and influential current within the Democratic Party. Strong criticism is also increasingly being heard among Republican circles, demonstrating that the crisis runs much deeper than a temporary disagreement between Israel and a particular US administration.
This assessment is consistent with the results of a March 2026 survey by the Pew Research Center, which found that 60 percent of Americans viewed Israel unfavorably, compared with 53 percent in 2025 and 42 percent in 2022.
Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the unfavorable view reportedly reached 80 percent. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Republicans under the age of 50 also expressed strongly negative views of Israel, despite the fact that Republicans overall remained more supportive of Israel.
Conditions That Prolonged the War in Gaza
Reflecting on negotiations over Gaza, Gordon said a significant opportunity for progress emerged in early July 2024, when Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, had agreed in principle to the framework of a deal and demonstrated flexibility by dropping its earlier demand that a permanent ceasefire be guaranteed in advance.
The framework had been announced by former US President Joe Biden on May 31, 2024. It envisaged a phased agreement beginning with a ceasefire and a prisoner exchange, followed by negotiations over arrangements for a permanent end to the war. According to Gordon, Washington viewed Hamas’s positive and flexible position as a valuable opportunity to advance negotiations.
However, Gordon revealed that Netanyahu abruptly introduced new conditions during a telephone conversation with Biden on July 4, followed by an ongoing series of what he described as “clarifications.” These included maintaining a permanent Israeli military presence along the Philadelphi Corridor on the Gaza-Egypt border and establishing an Israeli checkpoint mechanism to conduct stringent searches and inspections of Palestinians returning to northern Gaza.
He said Netanyahu’s continued insistence on these demands made an agreement impossible at the time, even though both conditions were ultimately removed from the January 2025 agreement.
Gordon estimated that during the six months lost, approximately 9,000 additional Palestinian civilians were killed in Israeli bombardments, while several Israeli captives also died. This, he argued, exposed the devastating human cost of the delay in reaching an agreement.
Although Gordon refrained from making a definitive judgment about all of Netanyahu’s behind-the-scenes tactics, he suggested that rejecting the proposed settlement and agreement aligned with Netanyahu’s personal political interests and his need to prevent the collapse of his far-right government. This was despite strong objections from Israeli security officials, including then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.
Accountability of the US Administration and Washington
Gordon’s testimony comes amid an intense debate over responsibility for delaying the agreement, particularly as Netanyahu’s supporters have cited written statements and a book by former US official Brett McGurk in an effort to justify Netanyahu’s conduct during the war. Gordon argued that McGurk’s writings did not present the complete picture and did not reflect the views of all former officials in the Biden administration.
Gordon’s assessment was not limited to the Israeli side. He acknowledged that the US administration in which he served should have exerted much stronger pressure on Netanyahu to end the war from its early stages. Such pressure, he said, should have included diplomatic efforts as well as imposing strict conditions on the supply of ammunition and weapons to Israel, without necessarily demanding a complete suspension of military assistance.
He cited the example of Washington’s pressure on Israel to open additional crossings after Israeli forces killed foreign aid workers from World Central Kitchen in Gaza. According to Gordon, Israel yielded to pressure to expand access, demonstrating that Washington possessed significant leverage and effective instruments of influence—provided it linked its demands to changes in policy.
Gordon’s revelations come at a time when criticism of Israel has intensified in the United States, widening the gap between political institutions’ continued support for Israel and increasingly negative public sentiment.
Amid international calls for restrictions on arms supplies to Israel, Gordon’s testimony carries particular significance because it comes from a former US official who was directly involved in American policy during the war. His account acknowledges that Washington had tools available to restrain Israel and potentially bring the devastating war to an earlier end, but did not use them to their full potential.
He also warned that a mere change in leadership would not necessarily erase the lasting consequences of these policies or reverse the shift in American public opinion.
