How Netanyahu lost America: Al Jazeera update
As Benjamin Netanyahu began his latest visit to Washington, DC, to reaffirm Israel’s indispensable alliance with the United States, a public opinion survey offered a
As Benjamin Netanyahu began his latest visit to Washington, DC, to reaffirm Israel’s indispensable alliance with the United States, a public opinion survey offered a remarkable measure of how profoundly that relationship has changed. An Economist/YouGov poll released on July 28 found that 49 percent of Americans believe the Israeli prime minister should be arrested under the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. Even more striking, 47 percent said they believe the prime minister has committed war crimes in Gaza. Only a decade ago, such findings would have been politically inconceivable. Today, they are the clearest evidence that Netanyahu has accomplished what generations of Israeli leaders worked to avoid: transforming Israel from a bipartisan cause into one of the US’s most polarising foreign policy issues. That transformation did not begin with the October 7, 2023, attack, nor solely with the genocide and devastation in Gaza. Those events accelerated a process Netanyahu set in motion years earlier. His greatest strategic failure was political. By tethering Israel ever more tightly to one US party, treating Republicans as permanent guarantors while dismissing Democratic concerns, he undermined the broad bipartisan consensus that had anchored the relationship for decades. For generations, Israeli leaders understood that Israel could never afford to become a partisan issue. The alliance endured because both parties regarded Israel as a strategic partner whose security transcended domestic politics. That consensus was as valuable as any military aid package. Netanyahu inherited that asset. He is now in danger of squandering it. Ironically, few Israeli politicians knew America better. Educated partly in the US, fluent in its political language and deeply connected to Washington’s establishment, he understood how power operated. Yet that familiarity bred miscalculation. Convinced that demographic and ideological changes favoured a permanently ascendant Republican Party, Netanyahu abandoned his predecessors’ careful balancing act and invested heavily in one side of the US’s widening partisan divide.
The decisive rupture came in 2015, when he accepted a Republican invitation to address a joint session of Congress in open defiance of President Barack Obama during the Iran nuclear debate. Conservatives celebrated the speech as an act of courage; strategically, it marked a watershed. Never before had an Israeli prime minister intervened so directly against a sitting president. Millions of Democrats concluded that Israel’s leader had chosen sides, and the consequences outlasted the Iran deal. Donald Trump’s presidency appeared to vindicate this strategy. He recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, moved the US embassy, recognised Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement, abandoned pressure over settlements and discarded demands for a Palestinian state. Netanyahu mistook those victories for proof that bipartisan support had become obsolete, believing Republican loyalty could permanently replace Democratic consensus. That belief was strategically short-sighted. Alliances survive because they are rooted in institutions, shared values and broad legitimacy — not because they depend on one administration. By allowing Israel to become identified with Republican politics, Netanyahu weakened the alliance precisely when it needed to remain strongest. Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza exposed the consequences. President Joe Biden, despite unprecedented pressure from his Democratic Party, extended extraordinary military, diplomatic and political support to Israel after the October 7, 2023 attacks. He visited Israel during wartime, accelerated military assistance, defended it at the United Nations and absorbed fierce domestic criticism. Netanyahu answered with repeated public confrontations, accusing Washington of withholding weapons, rejecting US proposals for post-war governance, resisting humanitarian access and contradicting the White House on strategic questions. Even as Biden invested enormous political capital, Netanyahu appeared more intent on demonstrating independence to his domestic base than preserving the confidence of Israel’s most important ally. Meanwhile, the conduct of the war fundamentally altered global perceptions.
The BriefWire