How Netanyahu lost America

American public opinion regarding Israel and its leadership has undergone a significant transformation, according to recent polling data and political analysis. An Economist/YouGov survey released in late July found that nearly half of surveyed Americans support arrest of the Israeli prime minister under an International Criminal Court warrant, while a similar proportion believe he has committed war crimes in Gaza. A decade ago, such positions would have been considered politically untenable in mainstream American discourse, reflecting a dramatic shift in how the US public views Israel's leadership and military operations.

Political analysts trace this transformation to strategic decisions made by Netanyahu over the past decade rather than solely to recent military operations. While the October 2023 attack and subsequent Gaza conflict accelerated changing perceptions, the underlying shift began earlier through Netanyahu's deliberate political alignment with the Republican Party. By treating Republicans as permanent strategic partners while dismissing Democratic concerns, Netanyahu abandoned the careful bipartisan approach maintained by previous Israeli leaders. This represented a fundamental departure from the consensus that had sustained the US-Israel relationship for generations, when both major American political parties viewed Israel as a strategic partner transcending domestic political divisions.

The decisive break in this bipartisan consensus occurred in 2015 when Netanyahu accepted a Republican invitation to address Congress in direct opposition to President Barack Obama during negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. The speech marked an unprecedented intervention by an Israeli leader against a sitting US president and signaled to Democratic constituencies that Israel's government had chosen partisan alignment. The consequences of this decision persisted long after the Iran nuclear agreement itself became a political issue.

Netanyahu's political calculations appeared vindicated during the Trump presidency, when the administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, relocated the US embassy, and acknowledged Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. However, this apparent strategic success came at the cost of the broader bipartisan foundation that had historically protected Israel's interests across changing US administrations. Political observers note that Netanyahu's deep familiarity with American politics and Washington's establishment made this miscalculation particularly significant, as he possessed the knowledge to understand the long-term consequences of abandoning bipartisan support.