By: Dr. Sabir Abu Maryam
Secretary-General, Palestine Foundation Pakistan
(Palestine Foundation Information Center), In recent days, the United States has launched a direct attack on Iran at Israel’s behest, and bringing this war to an end has now become increasingly difficult for the US government and military establishment. The United States has become trapped in a quagmire from which, whether it manages to escape or remains stuck, humiliation and defeat are likely to be attached to the American government’s record.
A close examination of recent developments suggests that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have accomplished what his predecessors could only dream of: seeing American and Israeli warplanes operating together over Tehran, while Israeli officers are stationed at the US Central Command headquarters in Florida. From the days of David Ben-Gurion onward, Israeli leaders have sought the support of the world’s greatest superpower, believing that such backing would guarantee the permanent survival of their state. Few could have imagined the level of cooperation now on display. If “the Old Man,” as Ben-Gurion was known, could be brought back to life, he would surely be pleased to see his dream realized.
However, appearances can be deceptive. In one sense, US-Israel relations are at their peak. But from another perspective, they may have already entered the final phase of their decline. The political, ideological, and social pillars upon which this special alliance has rested for the past half-century are beginning to weaken.
Israel’s advocacy system in the United States—which includes lobbying groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Jewish social organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Christian Zionist groups such as Christians United for Israel—was once considered an almost invincible force on Capitol Hill. Today, amid deep political polarization in the United States, its influence is increasingly being challenged, first by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and now by the new isolationist elements within the MAGA coalition.
At the same time, American public opinion has undergone a significant transformation. Fewer than half of Americans now say that US support for Israel serves the national interest. For the first time in history, Americans reportedly show greater sympathy toward Palestinians than toward Israelis. Nor is it still universally accepted that Americans and Israelis share identical cultural and religious values. As the United States has become less Christian and more diverse, Israeli society has become more traditional, while its public culture has grown increasingly restrictive and inward-looking.
In both the political right and left in the United States, antisemitism has increasingly moved from the margins into mainstream political discourse. A growing number of people—particularly among younger generations and disillusioned sections of society—have come to regard anti-establishment politics as a form of popular resistance.
These changes were already underway before Hamas’s October 7, 2023 operation. However, Israel’s subsequent destruction of Gaza, the siege imposed on the devastated territory, the deprivation of its population, and the escalating violence by settlers in the occupied West Bank—which was broadcast live across social media for more than two years—accelerated these transformations dramatically.
As a result, a wave of anti-Israel sentiment has emerged and become an established feature of contemporary American politics. If the joint US-Israeli war against Iran represents the high point of this particular alliance, then what follows may well be its decline.
Although it was US President Harry Truman who recognized Israel, his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, maintained a markedly cooler attitude toward Israel. During the early years of the Cold War, Eisenhower was reluctant to allow Israel to disrupt America’s broader strategic balance.
John F. Kennedy broke with Eisenhower’s arms restrictions and became the first US president to provide Israel with American weapons. Richard Nixon—or, more precisely, his adviser Henry Kissinger—organized a major US military airlift to prevent Israel from suffering defeat during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.
Even so, there were limits to the relationship. Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush all understood when and how to say “no” to Israeli leaders. At times, they did so in language that would seem astonishing today, and at other times through threats of tangible consequences. They were not intimidated by the Israel lobby, which at that time was considerably weaker than the power it had accumulated by the mid-1990s.
The end of the Cold War brought the United States and Israel even closer together. The relationship was no longer primarily subordinate to America’s broader strategy based on the global balance of power. Instead, a relationship emerged that international relations scholars describe as a “community of strategic interests.”
Israel assumed the role of an enforcer of the new US-led international order in the Middle East. With the beginning of the global “War on Terror,” American and Israeli interests appeared to become increasingly aligned. The US media echoed this narrative, while American and Israeli leaders increasingly portrayed their countries’ interests as identical and their enemies—whether Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda or Yasser Arafat and the PLO—as two manifestations of the same extremist and terrorist threat.
This convergence of strategic interests was further strengthened by a broader perception of shared values. As the United States embarked on promoting democracy abroad, Israeli leaders portrayed their country as the region’s only democracy and emphasized its supposedly unique status.
For those who viewed the War on Terror through a civilizational lens, Israel was not merely an ally but a critical frontline state in the struggle between the Judeo-Christian West and its Islamist enemies.
American liberals, meanwhile, tended to portray Israel as an ideal and open society surrounded by a sea of authoritarian Arab governments, conservative religious regimes, and Islamist militants. From Bill Clinton through George W. Bush, US policy in the Middle East was successively shaped by liberal interventionists and their more hardline neoconservative counterparts.
This environment was highly favorable to Israel’s advocacy network. AIPAC was able to secure almost unanimous bipartisan support for Israel, while affiliated think tanks maintained influence under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Palestinian rights advocates, by contrast, had no comparable institutional structure. Unlike today, very few Palestinian writers had access to mainstream American media outlets.
During this period, criticism of the power of the Israel lobby remained largely confined to the fringes of political discourse, where the far left and far right sometimes converged in their theories and accusations.
At the same time, Holocaust remembrance culture was at its height. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened in Washington in 1993, and accusations of antisemitism could be sufficient to end a person’s career.
To be continued…
