How the Gaza Conflict is Deepening Political and Social Rifts
On May 8, the Biden administration announced a decision to withhold a significant weapons shipment to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), marking a notable move in response to Israel’s prolonged conflict in Gaza. This shipment, which included 2,000-pound bombs, was intended to prevent their use in urban warfare in Rafah, Gaza Strip. Although other weapon transfers continued, this decision highlighted the increasing partisan divide in the U.S. regarding Israel.
Democratic leaders in Congress and many Democratic voters felt that the administration had been too lenient with Israel’s conduct in the war. Meanwhile, numerous Republican members of Congress harshly criticized Biden’s decision, accusing him of being a “pawn for Hamas” and a “terrible friend to Israel.” Representative Elise Stefanik from New York even traveled to Jerusalem to publicly denounce Biden’s policy, showcasing the deepening rift within American politics concerning Israel.
Washington has long prided itself on bipartisan support for Israel, but in reality, a partisan gap has been growing for years. Democratic voters, and younger Americans generally, have become critical of Israel’s long-standing denial of Palestinian human rights and national self-determination. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s populist, illiberal policies and his theocratic governing-coalition allies have alienated them further. On the other hand, Republicans and many religious conservatives have seized on support for Israel—including unrestrained backing for right-wing Israeli governments—as an article of faith and increasingly, a political litmus test.
The Changing Dynamics of U.S.-Israeli Relations
The growing friction between Israelis and Americans didn’t start with the current war in Gaza. Longer-term social and political trajectories in both countries suggest that the famous “shared values” that have for decades underpinned the relationship were already under pressure. The war has brought this tension, and the partisan politics driving it, into full view. This does not mean that the countries are on a collision course, but it raises important questions about the nature of the alliance for the years to come.
To understand the significance of the current rift, it is important to recall that the U.S.-Israeli alliance has weathered many disagreements over the decades. In the past, each side presumed that the underlying relationship was sufficiently solid to absorb tensions or even crises. A U.S. administration that pushed back on Israeli behavior or demanded significant concessions might generate controversy, but opinion surveys, where available, indicated that the Israelis generally deferred to the Americans, regardless of who was in the White House.
Take the Carter administration. Breaking with decades of U.S. policy, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter became the first U.S. president to speak publicly about the need for a Palestinian homeland, in an unscripted remark at a Massachusetts town hall meeting. The idea was anathema to Israeli Jews at the time. In a survey taken two years earlier, 70 percent of them supported a boycott of the Palestinian Liberation Organization at the United Nations. Even Stuart Eizenstat, who was Carter’s chief domestic policy adviser and heavily involved in the administration’s Middle East policy, was caught by surprise. “I nearly fell off my bench,” he recalled in an interview.
Nonetheless, in 1978, Carter hosted the Camp David negotiations between Egypt and Israel, cajoling Israel to make an unpopular land withdrawal from the Sinai, which it had occupied after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, and putting the Palestinian issue squarely on the negotiating agenda. And when Israeli Jews were asked that September how much they trusted Carter, almost two-thirds said that they trusted him somewhat or a great deal. During President Ronald Reagan’s first few months in office, a similarly large majority, between 63 and 70 percent of Israeli Jews, said that they trusted him regarding Israel.
President Bill Clinton also maintained wide support in Israel, even when he was advocating for unpopular policies. In 1994, a year after the controversial Oslo accords were signed, 65 percent of Israelis said they were somewhat or very satisfied with Clinton. In the coming year, Israel lived through a wave of suicide bombings and the assassination of its prime minister, and there was sufficient concern about the accords that Israelis elected Netanyahu; nonetheless, support for Clinton remained.
In the summer of 2000, days before Clinton hosted the Camp David summit between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasir Arafat, surveys conducted by Stan Greenberg, who was advising Barak, found that nearly the same portion, two-thirds of Israeli Jews, gave Clinton a favorable rating. This was despite the fact that Israelis knew the United States would press for significant and highly controversial Israeli concessions to the Palestinians. Even after the talks collapsed and the second intifada broke out, Clinton remained popular.
Moreover, an Israeli leader who defied a U.S. president too brazenly could face serious political consequences at home. In early 1992, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker threatened to withhold U.S. loan guarantees to deter right-wing Israeli leader Yitzhak Shamir from using the funds to build settlements. Shamir’s government rejected the U.S. terms, and the rift was widely reported to have contributed to Shamir’s loss in the 1992 Israeli election. His successor, Yitzhak Rabin, ushered in a left-leaning government that quickly agreed to cease settlement expansion in certain areas and broke the impasse with the United States (although settlement growth ultimately continued).
Current Partisan Split and Changing U.S. Perspectives
However, it’s not at all clear that these patterns hold true today. Despite Biden’s sweeping support for Israel after the October 7 attack and throughout the war, Israelis have shown only lukewarm approval. In November 2023 and January 2024, studies from the Israel Democracy Institute reminded Israeli respondents that Biden had offered unyielding support, and then asked them if Israel should meet some U.S. demands in return; in both surveys, a larger number (a plurality) of Israelis said that Israel should make its own decisions rather than coordinate with Washington.
In mid-March, an opinion survey for Israel’s News 12 network found that Israelis preferred Trump to Biden in the 2024 U.S. presidential election by 14 points: 44 percent for Trump, versus just 30 percent for Biden. This was well before the administration had announced the decision to withhold the weapons shipment and just before the administration said that it would sanction a small number of violent West Bank settlers.
As in the case of U.S. attitudes about Israel’s leadership, Israeli attitudes about U.S. administrations also align to a significant degree with political affiliation: in the News 12 poll, nearly three-quarters of those who support Netanyahu’s coalition said that they preferred Trump, whereas 55 percent of those who support parties opposed to Netanyahu preferred Biden. In fact, this partisan divide reflects the culmination of social and political forces that have been underway in both Israel and the United States for years.
Democratic Discontent and Long-Term Trends in U.S. Opinion
In the months preceding Biden’s announcement about delaying the weapons shipment, Democratic discontent with Israel’s war in Gaza was running high. Progressive members of Congress were pressing the Biden administration to take a tougher stand against Netanyahu’s policies. And this past March, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer—a centrist Democrat and well-known Israel supporter—broke precedent to publicly criticize Netanyahu and call for early Israeli elections. Parts of the Democratic electorate, especially younger Americans and those on the left, have been at least as vocal as politicians in criticizing the war. Notably, weeks before Biden made his announcement about withholding the 2,000-pound bombs, a poll found that a large majority of Democrats, and a bare majority of all Americans, supported halting weapons shipments to Israel.
But these developments also reflect longer-term trends in U.S. opinion about Israel. It’s important to note that, as in previous decades, a firm majority of Americans support Israel. Netanyahu himself has cited a Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll from March that found that 82 percent of American adults support Israel over Hamas in the current war. The following month, a Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll found that 52 percent of Americans gave Israel a “favorable” or “very favorable” rating, compared to just 16 percent for the Palestinian Authority—and 14 percent for Hamas (a figure that is perhaps surprisingly high, though the group ranked dead last in favorability on a list of 18 countries or groups). Even among college and university students, whose pro-Palestinian protests have been widely covered, opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are far more measured than has often been portrayed in the media. For example, a survey conducted in early May for Axios found that 83 percent—an overwhelming majority—of U.S. college and university students believe that Israel has a right to exist.
Yet Americans have become increasingly critical of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. According to Gallup polling, the overall portion of Americans who side with Israel over the Palestinians has declined from 64 percent in 2018 to just 51 percent in early 2024. Pew surveys have also revealed a growing partisan gap on this question. In 2001, just 50 percent of Republicans sided with Israel; by 2018, the number had increased to 79 percent; conversely, among Democrats, those who chose Israel shrunk from 38 percent in 2001 to just 27 percent in 2018. This divergence seems only to have solidified in the years since.
The Right-Wing Shift Among Young Israelis
For at least 15 years, in-depth studies have shown firm right-wing trends among young Israeli Jews. There are two immediate explanations for this phenomenon. One is demographics: more young Israeli Jews come from religiously conservative families and communities that traditionally support right-wing politics. The second is the prolonged conflict and the resulting security concerns, which have fostered a more conservative outlook among the younger generation. This shift has significant implications for the future of U.S.-Israeli relations, as the political landscape in Israel continues to evolve.
In conclusion, the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel is facing unprecedented challenges. The growing partisan divide in American politics, coupled with shifting dynamics within Israel, suggests that the future of this alliance will be shaped by increasingly complex and nuanced considerations. While the bond between the two nations remains strong, the evolving political and social landscapes in both countries will undoubtedly influence how this relationship unfolds in the coming years.
